Sabotage
by geoblock
Summary: Scorpius and Rose's rivalry is infamous, across both the classroom and the Quidditch pitch. Until an ill-planned revenge plot lands them in a month's worth of detentions, forcing their co-operation. Or, is eight hours all it takes?
1. A Crest of Coxcomb

_Monday 14th November 2022_

Rose was occupying her unofficial official spot in the library, hunched over a spread of books, parchment and half-chewed quills.

The spot itself was perfect—nestled comfortably between two bookshelves, in the Muggle Studies section of the library, meaning it was ill-used and scarcely visited by chatty students bent on disrupting Rose's peace.

But the best part of the table was the generous window it was positioned by, giving Rose a gracious view of the Hogwarts grounds. In spring, when her exams loomed, the view was lush and green, warmed lazily by the rare Scottish sun, littered with younger students playing and sunbathing. In the dead of winter, it was stark and unending white, divided only by the tracks that students brave enough to face the chill.

Now, however, the last month of Autumn hung over the castle, so Rose watched as the harsh wind threw around the last of the orange leaves, tugging and pulling at them with a thousand invisible hands. Sometimes, when Rose lay still enough in her bed—in one of the highest dormitories of the Gryffindor tower—she swore she could feel the whole room shaking and shuddering, giving in a little to the winds whipping around it. Her friends assured her that the castle had been standing for a thousand years, and would stand for a thousand more, but Rose would bite her nails and think how it must be due for collapse.

Rose tried not to let her anxiety get the better of her, but sometimes the thoughts all coalesced together, forming a swarm, that stung and bit and insisted on being heard. Rose was certain each one was filled with venom, as sweat would break out on her upper lip, and her heart would pound furiously—not allowing her to do anything else until the thoughts were forced to calm, fought back into the tiny corner of her brain they usually occupied.

Study helped. Rose threw herself in schoolwork, putting her mind into practical problems with solutions that could be reached with formulae and processes. People praised Rose on her studiousness—her marks reflected her work—but only her friends knew that study was a form of distraction for her, a side effect as opposed to an intention.

Quidditch also helped. The adrenalin reduced everything else to a lull, as Rose's thoughts were simplified to 'Quaffle to hoop' and nothing else mattered when she was in the air. Her rigorous practice had earned her a place as front Chaser on the Gryffindor team—and she held the current record for most goals scored in a solitary game in the last fifty years of Hogwarts history. Her father had bought her the latest Firebolt for that feat.

It had been worse when she was a child, but now she had coping mechanisms, and a supportive group of friends and family, so her thoughts usually stayed at a normal jogging pace.

Rose currently felt utterly at peace—her eyes lifting to follow the leaves out the window whenever she finished a paragraph in her Transfiguration essay and was thinking on what to write next.

At least, until, she felt a sharp tug on her curly hair—her neck snapping back, to find herself meeting the cruel gaze of an upside-down Scorpius Malfoy.

She'd barely hissed a 'let go, prat' when his grip relinquished, leaving her to sit up, rubbing her aching neck and turning to glare at her harasser.

"I hope for all our sakes that a hairbrush is at the top of your Christmas wishlist, _Roza_ ," he smirked, as he unravelled a single strand of chestnut hair that had caught in his fingers, handling it with the same distaste as one might a dead spider.

She retorted with a string of offensive words. But to her frustration, he sniggered,

"Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think that's anatomically possible."

Rose could feel the anger beginning to brew, prickling at the back of her neck where it still ached a little. Scorpius Malfoy knew how to push her buttons better than anyone else at the school, probably because of the six years he'd spent honing the skill. He always managed to tap into the wildly impulsive, violent side of Rose which _she'd_ spent the previous six years trying to tame.

 _Count to ten, Rose._

"I don't know why Albus is friends with you." She snapped, standing to pack her things. If either one stayed, it would end nastily. They were extremely volatile in one another's presence, and always had been, since practically their first meeting.

"Trying to make up for the lack of intelligent conversation he gets from you."

 _Walk away. You're a prefect, be mature._ Her voice of reason sounded strangely like her mother.

"Just piss off, Malfoy."

She'd nearly finished packing now—angry that she'd been forced to evacuate, but eager to leave before the situation escalated. She knew Malfoy was just trying to wind her up—it was a favourite past time of his—but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Rose reached for the last slip of parchment—her Transfiguration essay—but he'd seen her attention turn to it, and snatched it from the table before she could get it in her grasp.

He skimmed it—face falling into a sneer—which Rose knew she shouldn't take to heart,

"Did you pay someone from the head injury ward at St Mungo's to write this for you?"

"Just thought I'd take a leaf out of your book." She replied without thinking.

"Cute."

Rose went to snatch it back, but he dodged, plunging a hand into his robe pocket, producing his wand. She went for him again, but he held the essay out of her grip—curse the bastard for being so tall—pressing his wand to paper. It went up in a puff of smoke.

There were spells she could do to recover the essay; all was not lost. But all she could see was red, and the taste of metal in her mouth was overwhelming. At this point—if they'd been here—her best friend Tessie would be dragging her away, or Albus would be throwing up a shield charm. But it was only she, Malfoy, and her balled up fists.

Oh, the amount of times she'd come home from playing covered in bruises, cuts and scrapes, standing up for the underdogs at the neighbourhood playground, scrapping with bullies twice her size. Rose's temper was lethal, and irrepressible. It made her a brilliant chaser—action before thought—but not so good for her detention count.

She drew her fist back, and sent it flying into Malfoy's smug face. Unfortunately, Madame Pince chose that moment to find the source of the commotion, and got a brilliant and unimpeded view of the punch. Thus, she earnt herself a two month ban from the library.

* * *

 _Tuesday 15th November_

"I feel like the pictures are watching me."

"They probably are."

Albus groaned, adjusting in his seat, tugging at the silver and green tie around his neck to loosen it. The shuffling of his chair echoed in the empty classroom they occupied, ringing off bare walls and making Rose cringe.

"Imagine how warm the library would be right now. All safe, under Madam Pince's loving gaze—"

Rose lifted her head from her textbook in irritation, "First of all, Madam Pince's gazes are far from loving, unless you're talking about the way she looks at the books. Second, it wasn't my fault I got banned from the library."

Albus raised one eyebrow, shooting Rose a look she wished she knew how to do, "You're saying you didn't sock Scorpius?"

Rose's cheeks heated, anticipating a telling-off, "Well, I only socked him because he incinerated my essay." She replied defensively, resting her quill back in the ink pot to avoid Albus' eyes. Any minute now he'd cross his arms, and she'd really be in for it.

"If you two would just try and get along—"

"When hell freezes over, I'm sure—"

"Rose." Albus crossed his arms.

Rose sighed.

"You know I don't like it when you use your parent tone on me."

But Albus was in rant mode now, which only ever seemed to be directed at Rose.

"He's a great bloke, my best friend—excluding you, of course." He added quickly, to Rose's glower, "So it makes sense that if the two of you tried, you must be able to tolerate each other to some degree."

Rose scoffed, ignoring the way her breath fogged a little. God this classroom _was_ cold,

"No offence Al, but you're a terrible judge of character."

"No, I'm not." Her cousin protested quickly.

"Remember when your brought home that terrible stray of unidentifiable breed, that bit everyone and was absolutely evil?"

"He was sweet!"

"He was venomous!"

Al sniffed in offense, "Nothing wrong with being a little harder to love." he muttered.

Rose could tell her cousin was getting a little misty-eyed—like he always did when animal welfare was discussed—so she desperately tried to redirect the conversation,

"All I'm saying is that we've had this conversation time and time again, and it is entirely pointless. I detest Scorpius, and my impression is that the feeling is mutual."

Albus had a look a resignation on his face, leaning back in his chair, "Just try to tone it down a little. Maybe stop hitting him? I'm sick of healing his bruises."

Rose couldn't help it, she felt a flare of amusement—picturing Scorpius with a blackeye courtesy of her. She tried to suppress lest it turn into another argument. But Al caught the upward quirk at the corner of her mouth, and he rolled his eyes.

Rose tried to lighten her tone, softening it into an almost-plead, paired with a grin that Albus always gave into, "Did I get him good? At least tell me that."

Albus allowed a small smile himself, "Your Dad should've never have taught you to punch." He muttered.

Rose laughed, and even Albus chuckled, and Rose knew they were fine. Both parties turned back to their excessive homework, the topic of Scorpius exhausted—for now.

* * *

 _Thursday 17th November_

Rose wasn't looking forward to heading back up Hogwarts' endless staircases—her thighs were still burning from yesterday's Quidditch practice—but this week her patrol route included a thorough check of the dungeons. Usually the job was assigned to a Slytherin or Hufflepuff prefect—saving the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws from a monumental walk—but Rose was sure the Head Boy, Ewan Diggory, was bitter over the fact Gryffindor had completely thrashed Hufflepuff in last weekend's Quidditch match. Or maybe because Magda—one of Rose's dormmates—kept rejecting his multitude of advances.

"Prat." She muttered, rolling her shoulders. Each clicked loudly, a discouraging sound, as though protesting.

 _Just one more corridor_ , she promised her tired muscles, _then bed time._

She rounded a stone-walled corridor, groaning as she spotted movement up ahead. She really _really_ just wanted to sleep, but if she let the curfew-breakers go, it would just give Ewan a reason to scold her in the next meeting.

"Stop!" she called, hurrying her pace to catch up with the two figures frozen guiltily up the hall, brightening the light of her _lumos_ to identify them.

But she didn't particularly need to, not when she caught the hiss of,

"Fucking _seriously_?"

The lofty vowels could only belong to one person, so Rose was unsurprised when she caught up with a head of perfectly straight honey-blonde hair, held back neatly in its infamous black headband.

"Avery." Rose sighed at the pure-blood girl, "Why are you out after curfew?"

The Slytherin girl's lips puckered further as she scowled at Rose. She might've been pretty if she didn't constantly look as though she'd been sucking lemons—with big brown eyes, a swanlike neck, and a nose that was enviably straight. Rose's own nose had been broken twice—once by a stray bludger, once by the distance between a tree branch and the ground—and the sprinkling of dark freckles across the bridge of her nose didn't so much hide as highlight the kink.

"Why is it any of your business?" Avery snapped, tugging at her magically ironed blouse. Paired with her longer-than-standard skirt, and her polished loafers, her whole look was almost virginal, and would've been convincing if Rose hadn't heard the rumours.

"Unfortunately, Lauren's rule-breaking is my fault, _Roza_."

The words ' _fucking seriously?'_ rose in Rose's brain, but she prided herself on having more decorum than Lauren Avery, so didn't say them out loud.

Scorpius' smirk sat in its usual place, as he gave Rose an up and down that made her feel immediately unclean.

"Well," she forced herself to recover, the words catching a little, "can _you_ perhaps give me a reasonable explanation as to why you two are prowling the corridors a full hour after curfew?"

Avery cut in, a smirk almost identical Scorpius lit her face. Merlin, did they have classes for smirking in Slytherin? She'd have to ask Albus.

"Nothing that a prude like you would understand." Lauren insinuated smugly.

That was when Rose spotted the fresh hickey on Lauren's neck, and the unusually mussed quality of Malfoy's collar length hair—and wished she hadn't.

"Oh _ew_." Rose protested, her not-so-straight nose scrunching, and Scorpius laughed bitterly,

"Jealous?" he crooned, running a hand lazily through his white-blonde hair. _What an arrogant prat_ , Rose thought, as her eyes tracked the movement.

"She's getting none from what I've heard." Lauren spat.

That was where Rose decided to draw her line. She wouldn't have her sex life critiqued by two people who'd probably just spent the last hour in a broom closet, for God's sake.

"Twenty-five points from Slytherin." Rose paused, "Each."

"What?!" That had wiped the smirk from Avery's face—sending it back to its trademark lemon-sucking scowl.

"Whatever," Scorpius huffed, though his face had tightened infinitesimally, "she's just trying to make up for the fact that we'll be beating Gryffindor in Quidditch this weekend.

Rose snorted, "Yeah, right. I think you must be oxygen deprived from all that sucking face."

Scorpius went to respond again—with some witty quip no doubt—but Rose held up a hand to silence him.

"Get back to your common room, before I deduct another ten points each."

Avery looked like she wanted to argue, but Scorpius had intertwined their hands, tugging her for the Slytherin common room. Rose watched them go.

"Bitch!" Avery called bitterly, just before the pair rounded a corner.

"Goodnight to you as well, Avery!"

* * *

 _Friday 18th November_

She and Tessie sat on Rose's bed the night after, chocolate, and biscuits spread on the cover around them. Tessie was helping Rose put argan oil through her hair—a fortnightly ritual—keeping it from knotting and clumping. She'd inherited a shade of red a hint darker than her father's, but the texture was completely her mother's. The curls were a little softer, the volume a little calmer, but it was still a thick mess that needed constant attention. Tessie was plaiting it into tight French braids to keep it orderly, and the topic of conversation had inevitably drifted to Scorpius Malfoy.

Georgette McLaggen sat on her bed opposite, which one could almost mistake for a Quidditch shrine. Posters of Quidditch teams were so crammed together it formed a wallpaper, the players floating on broomsticks, their faces stoic. Georgette's bedspread changed as Quaffles and Bludgers flew about on it, their sharp lines crinkled by the unmade state of the bed.

And then, above her headboard, was Georgette's prized possession: a case displaying each and every Snitch she'd ever caught in a game. Sixteen in total, all ordered chronologically. It had once been the source of the biggest fight the dorm had seen yet, after Georgette had found a finger smudge left on the glass. She hadn't talked to any of the girls until the culprit had stepped forward.

"You guys just need a good, hate-fucking. Get it out of your systems." The girl in question suggested, playing with a half-broken Snitch that was trying feebly to fly from her.

Rose felt herself recoil, and Tessie snorted.

"Not everything is solved with sex, Georgette." Tessie pointed out testily, tugging a little roughly on Rose's hair.

"I'm yet to find something that isn't."

"Pregnancy?" Rose joked, and Georgette smirked at that.

"Funny, Rose." She allowed, snatching the Snitch just before it flew out of range. Under a dark fringe her eyes were lined heavily with black kohl—the only make up the girl wore, and never during a game.

"And anyway," Georgette continued, a shit-stirring look on her face, "you're one to talk, Tessie. I've seen the letters you're writing to that German boy. 'Oh, Elgar. If you were here, I'd lick you all over like an ice lolly. My affections for you—'"

"Have you been reading my letters?!" Tessie screeched, tugging hard enough on Rose's hair for it to hurt, "I told you not to go through my things, Georgette!"

"You shouldn't leave your sordid messages around for people to find." Georgette bit back, "And you need to slow down on the romance novels—sex isn't all rose petals, fireworks and cheesy similes for orgasms."

Tessie snorted again, and Rose marvelled at how clear the girl's sinuses must be, "Right, you'd know all about that."

"I would, _actually_ ," Georgette replied heatedly, "seeing as I'm the only one in this dorm room that isn't a virgin."

"Yeah, the whole school knows that." Tessie muttered, and Rose cut in quickly—sensing an argument brewing. It was common enough living with Georgette and Tessie; the two couldn't go a day without bickering.

"You think Magda's a virgin? She's got lots of male friends." Rose speculated, more for distraction than out of any kind of curiosity, "And they think she's the bees' knees."

Georgette shrugged, closer with Magda Urquart than the rest of them, "But she doesn't think that much of them. She's another one looking for the rose petals and candles experience."

Rose recognized _another_ dig at Tessie, and she didn't want her hair pulled again, "You don't think someone should have their first time with someone they love?"

Georgette snorted, "Sure, if you're into it. But it's just rubbish. You tie all this lovey nonsense to it, and then get all depressed when the 'guy you love' turns out to be another moron. Nothing wrong with 'love', but sex and love ought to be separate, in my experience. In fact, the best emotion to tie to sex is hate. Rough, nasty, angry. And I bet Scorpius—"

"Please stop," groaned Rose.

"Rose has 'issues' with Scorpius." Tessie explained, "Even if you have to admit, he is cute—"

"Stop!"

"He's so tall…I bet other parts of him—" Georgette continued, and Rose was ready to bolt from the room.

"But he only seems to date pureblood girls." Tessie pointed out, "I mean, have you ever seen him with a half-blood? Or a Muggle-born girl? He's just been all about Parkinson, Macmillan…"

"He dated that Nott girl too," Georgette chimed in, "and Alexandra Flint."

"What else would you expect from a pureblood snob?" Rose spat, "His family has generations of inbreeding to maintain."

She felt Georgette and Tessie meet eyes over her head—sharing a look—which didn't ease Rose's mood.

Their conversation was momentarily paused as Magda arrived home, flinging her bag onto the floor and kicking off her shoes—they flew half-way across the room. When Rose had met Magda, she'd been sure the girl had a little elf-ancestry. At barely five feet, her small features and huge cerulean eyes gave her a distinctly pixie look, only exaggeration by the short crop in which she cut her blonde hair. But for her petite stature, it was made up for her general loudness of character, the way her voice carried, and the large and dramatic fashion in which she undertook all things, no matter now mundane—like the simple act of removing her shoes,

"Uh-oh." Magda tutted, recognising the look on Rose's face, "Who made Rose angry?"

"We were discussing a certain blonde Slytherin." Georgette explained in a bored tone.

"That's a taboo topic in this dorm." Magda said in such a serious tone that they knew she was teasing.

"For good reason, too." Rose spoke up, embarrassed by her embarrassment, "You know he's horrid. From day dot he decided he hated me, and for—"

"No reason, yeah, yeah. We know." Georgette cut her off, waving a hand dismissively, "He's teased you, harassed you, always rivalled you in class. But you know what they say about boys pulling a girl's pigtails in the playground. It's—"

"A sexist mode of getting women to tolerate harassment from men?" Rose cut back in hotly, invitation for argument in her tone.

Eyebrows rose, and everyone avoided her gaze.

"Luckily, I suppose," Magda said lightly, "you know how to give back as much as you get. That boy has been walloped by you more in the last six years than he has in his entire, privileged life."

"And you usually kick his ass on the pitch, too." Georgette pointed out.

"Let's stop talking about the bastard." Tessie rounded up quickly, and Rose felt a rush of gratitude for the girls in the room. They would, at the end of the day, have her back. Tessie finished off the final braid, and Rose ran her fingers along the ends.

"On such topics as hair," Magda said quickly, "Your dye arrived today at breakfast, Tessie. We're just touching up the roots, yeah?"

Tessie nodded excitedly, jumping from Rose's bed and pulling a chair to the centre of the room.

"I don't understand," Georgette asked from her bed, as Magda transfigured a blanket to a towel, and set it around Tessie's shoulders, "why don't you just charm it blue? You charm it brown for your parents anyway, right?"

"It doesn't feel real if it's charmed. I prefer dyeing it." Tessie shrugged. Magda was now mixing two pastes in a plastic bowl. The smell was horribly chemical, and Rose scrambled for her wand to cast an air-freshening charm.

"That doesn't make sense." Georgette wouldn't drop it.

"It's just… a Muggle thing, I guess." Tessie blushed at the almost discussion around her status as a Muggle-born. Many purebloods—like McLaggen—thought Muggle processes were primitive and pointless.

Rose could tell Georgette and Magda didn't understand it—but Rose knew what Tessie was getting at.  
Hermione Granger had always taken care to introduce Rose and Hugo to the Muggle world, which was such a huge part of her identity. And when magic was so every-day, there was a special novelty to a process without it. Rose particularly liked making cups of tea in the Muggle way, especially late at night when she couldn't sleep. She'd fill the kettle, placing it back on the element and lighting the gas with a match. She'd pick out her teabag as the kettle boiled—sometimes herbal, sometimes Earl Gray or English Breakfast—and steep the bag for a few minutes before adding a dash of milk and half a teaspoon of sugar. The Weasley-Granger household was one of the only magical homes still hooked up to the Muggle electrical grid, possible through a spell of her mother's own invention.

"It's more of a 'fuck you' to the Man, anyway." Tessie tacked on, earning a scoff from Georgette.

"I'm eager to meet this 'man', you're always on about." She replied.

"It's a metaphor, genius." Tessie spat, turning to glare at her dormmate, "and if he was real, you'd have shagged him already."

"Jealous?" Georgette quipped, and Rose sighed. Another argument between Georgette and Tessie—all must be right in the world.

"Stop wriggling." Magda insisted, "or I'll get this dye all over your ears, and I won't wipe it off!"

This ended the argument fairly quickly.


	2. If I Be Waspish, Best Beware My Sting

_Saturday 19th Nov (Early Hours of)_

While Georgette maintained a sarcastic—and sometimes cutting—demeanour for the majority of the year, it was around Quidditch matches that her friends would see a more vulnerable side to Georgette McLaggen. As Gryffindor Captain and seeker, she already faced a heap of pressure from her House to perform. But this wasn't helped by her father—Cormac—who seemed to live vicariously through his daughter on the Quidditch pitch. He was constantly sending Georgette five page long Quidditch strategies in his letters, and turning up to see the games whenever he could. Though it was obvious Georgette loved the game, her face always darkened when she spotted her father in the stands. Georgette had even confessed to Rose, that if Gryffindor lost a game, her father's letters grew noticeably shorter in the weeks following.

Rose had asked her mother if she knew of Cormac McLaggen—by Rose's calculations they would've attended Hogwarts together—but her mother's face had scrunched up, and she'd muttered some very un-Hermioneish words under her breath, so Rose hadn't pursued it.

Rose was struggling to sleep, her own nerves surrounding the game catching up with her. Though she'd known the prat would try to psych her out, Scorpius' taunting words—promising Gryffindor's imminent loss—rung in her ears.

"Rose? Are you awake?" Georgette whisper was barely audible over Tessie's snoring, and Rose shifted to face the girl.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

There was a silence, and Rose could just make out Georgette shuffling to a sitting up position,

"Do you think we drilled Paterson on his play enough?"

Rose tried not to sigh, "Yes, Georgette. He'll be fine."

Georgette paused again, and Rose's eyes adjusted to the dark a little better. She could just make out Georgette's eyes in the limited light, which looked unusually young not lined with their usual makeup, "But at yesterday's practice he messed up the feint. Dad said the feint is absolute crucial, as it triggers a chain reaction that will distract the left Slytherin Beater and open a gap—"

"—that will allow our left Chaser to slip through their defensive flank, yes." Rose finished, "It's going to be fine, Georgette. What we need now is sleep, so we'll be well-rested for the game tomorrow, yeah?"

There was another long silence—Tessie let out a grunting snore—and Rose sensed that Georgette had something else to say. But the girl seemed to think better of it, shifting around so she was lying down again.

"Goodnight Rose."

"Night Georgette." Rose whispered back, rolling over in her bed. Ignoring the clock on her bedside table—proudly showing it was quarter past one in the morning—she squeezed her eyes closed, attempting to will herself to sleep.

* * *

The Gryffindor team gathered in a circle on the pitch, brooms tucked at their sides in a cluster of bristles and handles.

"Right, team." Georgette started, her eyes flicking up to a specific spot in the stands. Her eyes kept drifting back there, as though magnetised, and Rose knew exactly who occupied the spot. Rose felt a twinge of sympathy, and she wanted to say something, but knew Georgette wouldn't appreciate it right now—she needed to project an aura of confidence, so the team would mimic it.

"Remember your drills. If we all work as a united force, we can easily break through Slytherin's defence. I know they've caught us in the past, but we're more polished now, and I think this game is completely winnable."

They threw their hands in the centre, with a quick chant before Hooch called the team captains forward for handshake—Georgette grimaced her way through a bone-crushing—before both teams took to the air.

Rose was relieved when she finally kicked off the ground, broomstick clutched tightly beneath her. She'd never get over the swooping in her stomach, the sudden feeling of lightness and complete freedom of movement. She needed to fly more often; she could feel tension draining from each muscle, loosening the line of her shoulders, as though lack of usual gravity was giving her body a break.

A call from the stands distracted Rose from her reverie,

"EYE ON THE SNITCH, GEORGIE." The booming yell was a little fainter on the pitch, but Rose's eyes found Georgette's face just as it flushed red with embarrassment. But then the balls were released, and Rose was too preoccupied with the Quaffle to keep a careful eye on her friend.

The pitch had erupted in movement. Spectators were screaming and chanting, Bludgers were flying, like a chaotic dance routine. But for all the madness, Rose's senses were entirely narrowed on the Quaffle. She loved how her whole world was blindered off to passes, movements and interception, an almost meditative state.

Slytherin had earned possession—for now, Rose smirked—and she calculated their next move. Parkinson—one of Slytherin Chasers—lingered outside the main formation, and Rose saw she had a direct line to the goal posts. The Chaser with the Quaffle saw the opportunity to pass, but Rose was already there, intercepting neatly and making a swooping turn.

Dodging a Bludger, she raced up the pitch, gaining ground that Slytherin had taken. But their Chasers were shadowing her, there was no straight shoot. She made a risky pass to Emilia Spinnet, but the girl managed to catch it, keeping ground. Attention now off her, she kept up alongside Spinnet, trying to keep herself open to catch. They were nearly at the posts now, and Rose felt a familiar anxiety bloom in her gut.

Malfoy lounged lazily on his broom before the goalposts, as though he were the king of his domain. He almost looked it too—the pale sun of late autumn playing with the platinum shades in his hair, which had been scraped back by a leather hair tie. Strands had escaped in the wind, but he didn't seem to notice, for all his concentration was narrowed in on the approaching Quaffle.

To the untrained eye his posture could've easily been misconstrued as lazy, but Rose knew—from hard earned experience—that Malfoy's reflexes were not to be underestimated. The gentlest tap to his broom, a slight shift, and the Quaffle would be in his hands. She hated to pay Malfoy anything resembling a compliment, but he was unnervingly _fast._ One moment the Quaffle could be sailing for an empty hoop, and in the next it would be wrapped securely in Malfoy's broad arms.

Rose didn't have to wait long to see him in action—Spinnet flicked the Quaffle for the left hoop, and suddenly Malfoy's right hand had grabbed it straight out of the air, interrupting its otherwise perfect trajectory.

"Are you even trying, Spinnet?" Malfoy called, flicking the Quaffle to Slytherin's right Chaser.

Emilia Spinnet returned with a very dirty word, which—luckily—Madame Hooch didn't catch.

But they were off again, struggling to find a gap in Slytherin's passes as they raced for Gryffindor's goals.

"DON'T LET HIM PULL AHEAD, GEORGIE! I DIDN'T BUY YOU THAT BROOM FOR NOTHING!" the familiar roar sounded from the stands, and Rose found her eyes searching for Georgette on the pitch. She wasn't hard to find—her face as red as her robes at her father's words.

But then Spinnet was flicking her the Quaffle, and Rose cut and wove around Bludgers and Chasers back to Malfoy, who grinned nastily at her from his perch.

"Let's cut out the middle man, _Roza_ —just hand the Quaffle straight to me." He taunted, as Rose squared to throw.

But—as Malfoy had intended—his words had thrown her off, and he easily scooped the Quaffle out of the air.

"You're so sexy when you fail, _Roza_." He called, flicking the Quaffle off.

"Shut up, you wanker!" she replied, her face warming as she caught the commentator's words,

"And Weasley-Granger misses the shot—Slytherin has possession once more."

Slytherin scored three goals in quick succession, and the frustration in Gryffindor was palpable. When one of their Beaters aimed a Bludger at Parkinson's head, Slytherin were awarded a penalty, which they landed.

That, and Cormac and Malfoy's increasingly abusive taunts, had Rose practically seething when she next rolled up to the goalposts, Quaffle in hand.

"You know, _Roza_ , I can help you work out some of that tension, post-match. Just make sure you bring a paper bag. You know, for your head."

Shifting her body, squaring up, Rose angled so that it looked as though she was aiming for the far left hoop. She watched as Malfoy's concentration locked onto her, shifting himself in the seat of his broom.

Though these movements and interaction were mere milliseconds, pitch time was entirely different. An hour of fast-paced Quidditch could pass in a minute, but moments like these seemed to extend to unreasonably long bouts of time; like someone had filled each second with a thousand more frames than necessary.

Rose let Malfoy fall for the feint, and shifted her throw as the boy began to move. It was one of her more powerful throws, fuelled by frustration and contempt for the human barrier before the goals. She'd aimed for the centre hoop, as Malfoy was moving for the far left. She could see the second in which he recognized his mistake, but the Quaffle was flying straight for the goal.

It was, perhaps, the only instance where Malfoy wasn't fast enough. His head, unfortunately, happened to coincide with where the Quaffle was heading. In all his zeal to block the _wrong_ hoop, he'd put his fat head in front of the _right_ one. Malfoy was good, but he wasn't good enough to catch a hurtling Quaffle with his head, and his head alone.

The was a resounding crack, as the ball made contact with his skull. Malfoy's face went completely slack, eyes rolling back into his head. Sliding off his broom, entirely unconscious, his slump body hurtled toward the pitch floor.

The whole incident only spanned a few seconds, but Rose's intestines felt as though they'd been transfigured into writhing snakes. As soon Malfoy started for the ground, logic kicked in, and Rose fumbled for her wand to break his fall.

But she never saw him hit the ground, as the stadium suddenly erupted in sound. Rose caught snatches from the barely audible commentator,

"And McLaggen catches the Snitch for a Gryffindor victory!"

* * *

 _Monday 21st Nov_

Malfoy wasn't in class. Rose arrived in Transfiguration, surprised to find Albus sitting in the seat next to hers. She and Malfoy shared access to Albus in class—he sat with her every second day, and Malfoy the rest. It was Malfoy's turn with him today, but after a cursory glance at the back of the room, she noted an absence of an overly-inflated, blonde head.

Albus caught her look, and his face tightened a little as she took her seat,

"Scorp is still in the Hospital Wing—his skull was cracked pretty badly, he's still concussed."

The niggle of guilt that had been chewing at Rose all weekend seemed to expand, and she stressed at her bottom lip with her teeth. She'd been trying to write the guilt off as a lingering hangover since yesterday morning—the Gryffindor celebratory party _had_ gotten a little out of hand—but hearing the seriousness of Malfoy's state had sent it into overdrive.

It took her a minute to gauge Albus' silence, and she frowned in realization,

"You don't think I did it _deliberately_ , do you?"

Her cousin was stubbornly facing the front, refusing to look at her.

"It sure looked like it, Rose." His voice was taut, and Rose was dealt another punch of guilt to her stomach.

"Al… it wasn't like that at all." She tried to disguise the hurt in her voice, but she'd always been terrible at controlling her emotions, "I was just trying to get it in the hoop. I didn't _aim_ for him. Al… for Christ's sake, you don't think I'd do something that… malicious, would you?"

The tense line of Al's shoulders loosened, and he finally met her eye,

"No, I don't." his green eyes were serious, "But Scorp is all but convinced it was deliberate. I know it might be asking too much, given your history, but you really need to apologise."

It was reflexive to refuse. Being vulnerable in front of Malfoy, showing weakness, it was akin to smearing bacon grease on herself and walking into a wolf den.

"Can't you just tell him?"

Albus shook his head, "He'll think I'm just peacekeeping—he needs to hear it from you."

"Al—"

"Rose, please. I know he's bullied you in the past, but this is a whole different thing. He thinks you grievously injured him, _intentionally_. Just talk to him."

Their conversation was cut short as Professor Zhou entered the room, her navy robes billowing majestically behind her. The silvery prosthetic that functioned as her right hand lifted—flicking her wand with a casual air. Each of the students completed essays flew to her desk, arranging themselves in a neat stack.

"We'll talk about this later." Albus finished, his attention shifting to the impending lesson.

* * *

 _Sunday 27th Nov_

The idea of apologising to Malfoy was about as pleasant as a cup of cold sick, but Rose knew Albus was right. She'd rehearsed her apology nearly fifteen times, twice to both Magda and Tessie. She'd even rehearsed it to Georgette, but the girl had told Rose that 'a blowjob would be quicker', so Rose hadn't bothered practicing for her again.

But what Rose hadn't factored in was hunting Malfoy down. She hadn't thought it a problem, as Malfoy often found her just to harass her regularly. But since the Quidditch game, he'd completely frozen her out and, if Rose wasn't mistaken, was deliberately avoiding her.

The normal taunts and calls that came with their interactions were no more. Even when he was forced to interact with her—like when she and Albus walked to classes with one another—he avoided her eyes completely, refusing to even say hello. In a messed up way, Rose found herself _missing_ the attention, finding that she'd prefer snide comments over complete apathy.

In the end, it took quite some effort to get alone with Malfoy.

She asked the Ewan Diggory if he could adjust the prefect roster, so she'd get a patrol with Malfoy—glad for the first time that Malfoy was Prefect for Slytherin.

Ewan had refused, so Magda had promised to let him take her out on one date to Hogsmeade—'and only _one_ date, Rose, I hate that prat'—if he'd adjust the roster.

So, on Sunday night—over a week since the Quidditch incident—Rose organized to meet Malfoy outside the Prefect common room for their patrol.

"Ready?" Rose had asked cheerily, and she'd only earned a scowl in response.

They started down the first floor corridors—Rose pausing to check secluded corners and broom cupboards they passed.

"God, you're sad." Malfoy spat the first time, and Rose fought not to get angry,

"I'm just doing my job." She said with false cheeriness, as though her faked optimism could fight the cloud of gloom that enveloped Malfoy.

"Just let the poor bastards have at it. Got to have some kind of outlet for all those hormones."

Rose was battling viciously with her temper, "School policy says—"

He scowled, and Rose actually missed the infuriating smirks he used to save for her, "Don't pull that shit, Rose. School policy says you shouldn't clock people either, but look at you."

Rose's stomach dropped, as they reached the crux of the matter, "Actually, I've been meaning to say—"

Malfoy's face darkened, "There's nothing you need to say about _that._ You made your intention pretty clear with that Quaffle."

Her temper was at boiling point now, and her hands flew to her hips, "For the record, _you_ were the one that got in the way—"

"Right," he laughed without humour, "and that's the excuse you used to escape punishment?"

"It wasn't like that—" she tried, but his eyes were glittering with pure, unadulterated malice. Most times, even when they fought bitterly, his eyes still held a degree of humour. But his glare was unrestrained and venomous, and Rose shivered.

"Oh well, what's one cracked skull for Hogwarts' favourite house to win the match?" he spat.

Rose felt the threatening sting of tears; frustrated that he wouldn't hear her out, frustrated that he was determined to see her as the villain, "Malfoy, I'm sorry—"

"Don't! Don't you dare pretend you regret it, Rose!"

Her anger and guilt were indiscernible from one another, especially with how viciously he pointed his finger at her, brandishing it like a wand. Rose's own wand was tightly enclosed in her fist, still half-lit with a _lumos_ , but she hadn't even considered lifting it against him. The tears in her eyes probably glittered in the faint light, but she yelled anyway,

"Right, like you haven't done worse in the last six years! You've ruined so much for me—but you still have the audacity to pretend to be a nice person, to Albus, to everyone else in my life! I hate you, Malfoy! I HATE YOU!"

He stilled, and the silence between them was raw contrasted against Rose's shouted proclamation.

Malfoy's voice was so casual it was icy, "You can patrol the top floors, and I will do the dungeons. Goodnight, Rose."

He didn't wait for her answer, stalking off in the direction of the staircases. Rose waited until she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, well after his _lumos_ had been swallowed by the darkness of the corridor, before she made any movement to finish her patrol.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! I'm about 30,000 words into the fic so far (roughly two-thirds through I think) so I'll try to keep the updates daily.**


	3. Small Choice in Rotten Apples

_Monday 28_ _th_ _Nov_

Rose had Albus for Transfiguration, and he was already seated when she arrived.

"Don't." Rose snapped as she took her place.

"I didn't—"

"Just don't." she replied, not meeting her cousin's eye.

"Ok." He relinquished, and an uncomfortable silence fell between them. Rose could sense how much Albus wanted to discuss it, which meant he could sense how much she _didn't_ want to.

The silence carried until Professor Zhou arrived, returning their marked essays. Rose's heart was in her mouth as she flipped the paper over, the feeling only eased when she spotted the 'O' at the top of the page.

"Sweet." She sighed, leaning back in her chair.

"Good mark?" Al asked, tucking his own essay into his backpack.

"Yeah. You?"

Al shrugged, and Rose recognized disappointment in the too-casual posture he held,

"Al…"

"It's fine." He said quickly, avoiding her eye.

"You know," she sat forward, "if you want help, just ask."

"Yeah, Scorp has already been helping me. I passed, it's fine. Good. Passes are good, right?"

"If you're happy with it, then it's good."

Albus looked like he was trying pretty hard to convince himself of that, and his gloomy attitude ignited a whole other realm of guilt for Rose. She'd been so caught up in the 'Malfoy' issue, she hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on things in Albus' world.

But Professor Zhou was welcoming them all to the lesson, and her presence was the kind that commanded attention,

"Now that we've finished our part on Human Transfiguration, we're going to be entering the theory section of our syllabus—" her lips quirked at the barely suppressed groan around the classroom, "which I can tell you've all been looking forward to. Now—"

She strode across the room, a slight draft upsetting a few fly-away strands of her pin-straight hair—the only head of hair in the classroom longer than Rose's.

"You all know the practical process behind _vera verto_ ," The professor opened one of the several cages that lined the classroom's walls, holding all manner of creature. A raven willingly hopped onto her hand, allowing itself to be pulled from the cage without protest.

" _Vera verto._ " She uttered the spell and, as expected, the raven seamlessly transitioned into a goblet, which she placed on her desk, "So, we know that I have temporarily used magic to rearrange the make-up of the raven—at the smallest level—to change it to a water goblet. That, remember, is the main difference between Transfiguration, and other, simpler spells. Transfiguration changes the item on a molecular level, not just altering or masking its appearance so it seems to be a water goblet. It is, for all intents and purposes, a water goblet. But what of the thought process of this raven—what of the state of its consciousness, self-awareness? Anyone have any ideas?"

Rose raised her hand, and Professor Zhou nodded, granting Rose permission to speak,

"When a living organism is transfigured into an inanimate object, the consciousness of the living thing is also transfigured. So, the raven doesn't have any awareness of its current state change, and has the consciousness—or lack of—of an ordinary water goblet."

"Very good, Miss Weasley-Granger, but— yes, Mister Malfoy?"

Rose refused to turn around, but she could feel Albus watching her carefully—his concern a confirmation of Malfoy's inevitably smug expression from a few rows behind her,

"That's just a theory, however," Rose could feel Malfoy's arrogance directed at her from across the room, "because it remains unproven until we can find a way to measure the awareness and consciousness of water goblets."

That earned a few sniggers, and Rose fought the blush that threatened to rise to her cheeks.

"Exactly, Mister Malfoy. Five points to Slytherin."

So they were back to normal now? He was going to one-up her in class, just like he always had? Would he have a cruel quip waiting for her outside of the classroom as well? If it wasn't for the way Albus was watching her, Rose could've sworn last night's argument had been a particularly vivid dream.

Professor Zhou was moving on, and Rose struggled to keep her mind on the lesson. She was especially preoccupied by the feeling of a set of eyes burning into the back of her head, daring her to turn around. But, in her own silent rebellion, she refused to budge.

* * *

Rose said her farewells to Albus at the end of the lesson—she headed for Potions when he had Care of Magical Creatures. At least that was a subject Albus had a natural affinity for—never earning less than Outstanding in any assignment he attempted.

Magda was the only friend of Rose's that took NEWT Potions, and though Scorpius took it too, it would be a cold day in hell before he was defined as a 'friend' in Rose's mind.

Reaching the classroom, she and Magda set up their individual cauldrons on the same desk, ready for their practical lesson. They were a week into brewing their own Polyjuice Potion, and Professor Slughorn had promised that he would give a personal demonstration to the effects of the Polyjuice Potion, using the best brewed potion in the class. But best of all, its brewer could select the person he'd turn into—within reason.

Potions was Rose's best subject—and with her mother's history with the potion—she was eager to fulfil the expectations placed upon her.

Knotting her long hair back into loose bun—fastening it all with multiple sticking charms to keep it together—she rolled her sleeves back and headed for the ingredients cupboard. She made sure to pick out only the best—the juiciest slugs, the freshest knotgrass—and Slughorn beamed at the care she took.

"I must say, Rosie," he nudged her conspiratorially, "my money is on you for this little competition."

"Thank you, Professor." She tried to smother a smile of pride, at least trying not to _look_ like a teacher's pet.

Rose was organising her items—still at the cupboard—when movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention from across the room.

Malfoy was hovering over her cauldron—seemingly sneaking a peek when she was busy with ingredients—and judging by his scowl, he wasn't pleased by Rose's progress. His hair back up in its leather tie, the strands that had escaped were straggly, probably weighed down by the heavy fumes filling the room. Like Rose, his sleeves were rolled to his elbow, revealing pale forearms shaped by Quidditch training.

 _Take a look, you prick_ , she found the smug thoughts forming as he lifted his gaze from her cauldron, letting it meet hers—most likely feeling the heat of her glare from across the room.

His scowl lifted into a toothy smile—flashing a set of unnervingly straight, white teeth—before tilting his head in acknowledgment, as though he were tipping an invisible hat for her. Rose's obvious confusion made him laugh, and he mouthed his ridiculous nickname for her ' _Roza_ ' before striding confidently to his own cauldron again.

When Rose set herself up at the desk, she thought about asking Magda for an analysis on Malfoy's weird behaviour. But guessing by the deep crease of concentration between her friend's eyebrows, it was unlikely Magda had paid any attention, if even noticing Scorpius' detour to their side of the classroom.

 _He's trying to throw you off_ , Rose reminded herself firmly. It was just like Quidditch, and if they gave house points for mind games, Malfoy would single-handedly win the cup every year.

Rose put her energy into the potion instead, counting each stir and managing the temperature of her cauldron with almost militaristic precision.

Just over thirty minutes later, Rose was ready to add the final ingredient for this lesson, before setting her cauldron under stasis and continuing tomorrow. The brew was perfect so far—this final addition would develop the potion's grey into the muddy green that was required.

Tilting the glass vessel carefully—Rose didn't dare breathe—the final lacewing fly fell into the cauldron, hitting the surface of the potion with a hiss. The colour changed immediately, nothing but perfect.

Rose beamed. There was no room for doubt now, Rose would be getting top marks for this one. Her mother would be pleased, she'd have to write and tell her first thing tomorrow—

But her cauldron issued another hiss, and Rose frowned, peeking into it. The previously perfect green had darkened to an oil slick black, which bubbled and boiled ominously in the cauldron,

"What—?" Rose fumbled for her Potions textbook, frantically skimming the instructions, trying to figure out what could've gone wrong. "But I—!"

She wasn't given time to finish her train of thought, however, as one frightfully loud bang sounded, and the black sludge melted through the bottom of her cauldron.

Her previous confusion had turned to full-blown panic now, as the black sludge inched along her desk, corroding through the wood alarmingly fast.

"Ah! What—" Rose cried, desperately grabbing at her possessions lest the creeping black sludge eat them too.

The commotion had caught Slughorn's attention now, "Rose, is everything alright?"

"There's—there's something wrong with my potion!" Tears prickled—her panic was walking the dangerous line of hysteria as embarrassment set in. Her classmates watched wearily, some with amusement, others with pity. At least Magda was helping; the girl was in the process of performing a stasis charm to stop the slow progress of the black sludge across the desktop.

"I did everything right I—" she all but sobbed, clutching her belongings desperately out of the way, on anxious tiptoes—afraid to approach but afraid to abandon her workbench.

All it took was a snigger. She heard it, even amid the chaos, and something clicked into place.

She spun on her heel, pointing an accusing finger in Malfoy's direction. A few of her things fell from her shaking arms, but she didn't care, not when she knew—

"You! You m-messed with my potion! I saw you, hovering over it—"

"Don't try to blame your lack of magical proficiency on me." Malfoy snapped quickly, his eyes glittering coldly.

"You _prat_ —" it was that metal taste again, her view of him wavered, though she knew he fists would not. She just needed, _had to_ hit some square of him, _hurt him_ —

There was a bang, and Rose found herself pushed back by a powerful shield charm, her school shoes sliding on the worn stone floors.

"You psycho bitch!" Malfoy yelled, his own cheeks tinged pink with anger.

"You—"

"ENOUGH!" Slughorn bellowed, and all noise in the classroom immediately ceased. Their Potions professor had never raised his voice before, and the students were shocked into silence. "Enough!" A vein was pulsing dangerously fast in Slughorn's neck, and his usually neat comb over was in disarray.

"Both of you to the Headmistress' office now!" he dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

"But—!" both parties protested in unison.

"NOW!"

Rose ducked her head, walking directly for the door. She felt Scorpius follow, but refused to even acknowledge him. She knew that if he said a single word to her—especially ' _Roza_ '—she wouldn't be responsible for her actions. The anger was still there, just bubbling and fizzing away as it waited for an outlet—much like her ruined potion.

So they walked to McGonagall's office in silence, Scorpius keeping a few paces back. It wasn't until they reached the entrance gargoyle—Rose spitting the password—that it became a race. They fought each other up the staircase, eager to make it to the Headmistress first and recite _their_ version of the story. But ultimately it was a tie, so both parties burst through the doorframe together,

"He sabotaged—!"

"She tried to—!"

Professor McGonagall, who'd been marking parchment with an eagle owl quill, raised her eyebrows at their outburst, with had the effect of casting an immediate silence over the two prefects.

" _Sit_." Was all she said, gesturing pointedly at two high-backed seats before her desk. Her lips were yet to un-purse, which Rose knew was a warning sign.

Each party took their seat.

"Explain to me, _one at a time_ , what brings you to my office. Miss Weasley-Granger?"

Rose felt a wave of self-satisfaction at being chosen first, but she repressed it to relay her tale with the necessary gravity. McGonagall was silent throughout, but her lips remained pursed.

"You believe Malfoy intentionally sabotaged your potion?" she paraphrased, and Rose nodded.

"That's a very serious accusation, Miss Weasley-Granger. Are you sure?"

"I just know—"

McGonagall cut her off, looking to Malfoy,

"Do you have a rebuttal for these accusations, Mister Malfoy?"

Malfoy seemed to stumble over his words, before his pale skin flushed, "She concussed me in Quidditch! She knew our Transfiguration essay was due on Monday, and I failed because I missed the deadline! It was sabotage!"

Rose scoffed, "I would've beaten you anyway." She couldn't help it.

"I've been beating you in Transfiguration for years, don't be—"

"Enough!" McGonagall interjected forcefully, stopping the argument in its tracks, "This is ridiculous! Frankly, I expect far more maturity from two of Hogwarts' best students, and Prefects, at that!"

She paused to adjust her glasses, before placing one hand over the other on her desk.

"Malfoy, if you would relay your perspective on the events of the lesson, please?"

Malfoy explained himself quickly, at least having the good grace to look embarrassed when he mentioned tampering with Rose's potion, but he lingered far too long on her attempted assault (in Rose's opinion).

"You tried to use physical violence on Mister Malfoy?" McGonagall's sharp gaze was on her now, and Rose flushed like Malfoy had.

She shuffled in her seat, her hand jumping down to fidget with them hem of her skirt, "I suppose I did lose my temper a bit—" she admitted.

McGonagall sighed, adjusting her glasses once more. There was a long pause, and both parties watched her with trepidation.

"It sounds to me as though you've both inherited a very old rivalry." She began, "One that you both refuse to analyse beyond surface value, which is unusual, as you're both intelligent and analytical young adults.

"I believe," she continued, "that if you two cannot get along of your own accord, you'll have to be forced to find a way. Which is why, starting tomorrow, the two of you will spend an hour in each other's company—twice a week—brewing another Polyjuice Potion. Using a _single_ cauldron." She added quickly, "In the hopes, that by the end of the month, you will have figured out how to handle each other with the maturity I'd expect from Prefects."

"I hope, Mister Malfoy, you will learn that revenge is a pointless and petty endeavour," her gaze swivelled to Rose, "and I hope, Miss Weasley-Granger, that violence is not a reasonable reaction in the face of conflict."

Rose felt adequately deflated, and judging by the line of Malfoy's shoulders, he did too.

McGonagall had picked up her quill, turning back for her parchment,

"Close the door behind you." She told them, which was their dismissal.

But as they got up to leave, Scorpius was nearly at the door in haste, she spoke again,

"Oh, and a letter _will_ be sent to your respective parents. Good day."


	4. It Is My Fashion, When I See a Crab

_Tuesday 29_ _th_ _November_

\- Eight -

A thick envelope arrived for Rose the next morning, earning a groan from her.

 _At least_ , she thought, at an attempt at optimism, _it's not a Howler._

A package arrived too—and she barely glanced at the 'Weasley-Granger' name on the front, before ripping it open.

She was surprised to find herself holding an older edition of _Failsafe Ways to Charm Witches_ , one that looked very similar to her father's old copy, which still haunted one of their family bookshelves,

"What—?"

"Hey! That's mine!" Hugo had spotted the book, and he practically leapt from his seat to charge Rose, grabbing desperately at the hardcover,

"Good morning to you as well, little brother!" she laughed, holding the copy out of his reach.

"Give it back—!" he grunted, shoving and tugging at her. Even though he was almost fifteen, Hugo barely came to Rose's shoulders—and Rose wasn't known for her height.

"Why on earth is Dad sending you this rubbish!?" Rose laughed, finally relinquishing her grip on the book. Hugo tore it from her hands, glaring at her, before storming back to his seat. Rose was surprised he'd extracted himself from his iPod for long enough to see her open the parcel—the boy was constantly surrounded by some kind of music. He barely spoke three words a day—Nana Weasley said he just thought in notes, not words. Rose just thought her brother might be a little slow.

"He's just quiet," Hermione always said, "Merlin knows where he inherited that from."

Though no one knew where he'd gotten his quietness from, he'd inherited the mousy brown of their mother's hair, which was arranged long and over his eyes. It did sort of add to the whole 'depressed musician' look he had going on, only added to by the pallor of his skin. Rose didn't think that was deliberate though, he just preferred to stay inside and practice on his array of instruments than go to Hogsmeade with his friends.

With a sigh, she opened the envelope, pulling out three sheets of parchment marked with her mother's neat script. She gave the letter a quick read—it discussed being mature, setting an example, counting to ten, and 'is Malfoy really that bad? Albus is good friends with him'—before reading the short addition from her father at the bottom,

 _P.S Mum wouldn't want me telling you this, but she socked Draco Malfoy right in the nose when we were in third year. Bloody brilliant. Also, good job on the Quidditch win.  
Love, Dad_

Rose snorted, just as Tessie sat down for the morning. The girl only ever caught the last ten minutes of breakfast—if she could make it at all—because she refused to sacrifice her sleep in.

"So your parents got the letter from the school, then?"

Rose nodded, tucking the letter into her pocket with a sigh,

"Mum's not impressed, to say the least. But Dad says she punched Malfoy senior when they were at school, so seems a bit hypocritical."

Tessie laughed, "At least your parents are interesting. I think the most rebellious thing my Ma has done was sleep through Sunday mass by accident."

Rose felt a twinge of pity, "Have you heard anything from them?"

Tessie's face fell a little, like it always did when her parents were discussed, "Nope. You know they refuse to learn about the wizarding mail system, so we're officially not talking. But they've stopped calling me a 'child of the devil' now, so that's progress."

"Oh, Tessie." Rose reached across the table, gripping her friend's hand, "They still love you, they're just… stuck in their ways."

"I guess. It's just… I can understand how having a witch in the family might've been a shock when they first found out, but it's been six years. And still they turn to the church for guidance, refusing to hear reasonable explanation. They think…" Tessie paused, toying with the bacon she'd piled on her plate, "they think they're being punished for something."

"Tessie…"

Tessie shrugged, attempting a weak smile, "Well, no point getting all weepy over breakfast."

"That reminds me," Rose said quickly, recognizing her friend needed a subject change, "Mum said you're absolutely welcome to spend Christmas with us again."

Tessie's smile twisted into something more genuine, "Oh, thank you, Rose. I'd love to."

"Fantastic, I'll tell Mum."

Tessie ripped off a piece of bacon, slyly tucking it under the table. When her hand reappeared, it was empty.

Rose laughed, "Is Athena under there?"

"She always appears when I get upset," Tessie smiled, breaking off another piece of bacon.

"A black cat. That's so… cliché, Tessie."

Tessie shrugged, but she didn't look as sad as she had before.

* * *

Rose received an official detention slip in first period, outlining her detention schedule with Malfoy—which would be every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon (between the last class and dinner) until the Christmas break. That was some extra eight hours she had to spend with Scorpius, _alone_. Rose's stomach clenched in dread all the way to four-thirty.

So, as dreaded things seemed to do, time sped up in anticipation of it. It wasn't long before Rose found herself walking the stone-walled corridor to her Potions classroom. She'd made this walk possibly hundreds of times since starting at Hogwarts, yet never before had it seemed so daunting.

Professor Slughorn was already there, as well as Malfoy, but she did her best to ignore the latter.

"I'm sure the two of you know where to find the necessary supplies. Unfortunately, I can't stay to watch you, so I'm trusting the two of you to undertake this project with maturity. Any issues will result in an instant failure." He looked at both of them with a solemn expression, and Rose felt a pang of regret at disappointing one of her favourite teachers.

"Alright, then," Slughorn finished, collecting a pile of parchment from his desk and striding for the door, his walk characterised by it's usually bounciness. He had such a light step for such a heavy man. But as he reached said door, he took a moment to look back at the two students with a grimace—like cooping the two of them together was akin to animal cruelty, "Good luck." His tone didn't bode well.

 _Right_ , Rose watched the door close, _it's only eight hours worth of detentions across an entire month. It doesn't even add up to a full day, you can do it_.

She couldn't ignore Scorpius any longer.

"How about you gather the ingredients, and I'll prep the cauldron?"

His face darkened, and Rose was confused until he muttered bitterly, "Figures."

"Figures?" her voice was falsely optimistic.

"That you'd assume I want to be bossed about."

Rose was sure to develop a twitch, trying to suppress the rage to throttle Malfoy. He deserved some kind of trophy for his ability to anger her in less than a minute.

 _Eight fucking hours_. She couldn't do it.

"Well, _apparently_ , you can't even walk past a potion without ruining it, so I thought you might like some guidance." She snapped, lighting the fire under their cauldron with a little too much vigour. She had to force the flames into submission before it took her eyebrows, hoping Malfoy hadn't noticed.

"My own potion was going perfectly, until you tattled," The bitterness of his tone mimicked hers, as he drew his hair into a messy bun. Rose fleeting realized she preferred it tied up, as his neck was no longer hidden by his usually collar-length hair, "now I'm having to repeat."

Rose was about to point out the injustice of it all— _she_ hadn't done anything wrong, but she still had to put up with him—when she was grabbed by a fit of curiosity,

"What was it that you put in my potion, by the way?"

He paused, and she realized she thrown him a little, "You mean—"

"What did you slip in my potion that made it do…?" she wasn't sure how to describe it, but the memory of that black sludge wouldn't be leaving her mind anytime soon.

"I—uh—" he cleared his throat, "suspended Salamander blood."

It was Rose's turn to pause, and her concentration slipped from her flame charm (it died),

"Suspended? How?"

It was strange—Malfoy didn't look arrogant, or proud in that moment. He looked the opposite, and Rose struggled to recognize it at first because he'd never bothered with it around her before.

But nope, he was ashamed. Truly ashamed.

"I suspended it in Boomslang Skin, so it didn't take immediate effect—"

"So, the Boomslang Skin dissolved—like it's supposed to—and the Salamander blood was left react when I inevitably added the lacewing flies."

He nodded, his eyes jumping between the cauldron and his own shoes, "Which brought out the volatility of the lacewing flies—"

"Exacerbating the corrosive nature of their stomach acid, and the potion took on that form—" she filled in,

"Because Polyjuice is a transformative potion, and when correctly brewed, will take on the quality added to it in the final stages." He finished, with a shrug.

Rose was a strange combination of horrified and fascinated.

"You complete and utter _twat_." She marvelled, and his eyes finally snapped up from the floor.

"What?"

"You—" she struggled with the words, out of sheer anger, "the amount of forethought you put into this—it's absolutely preposterous! How long did you think about it for? Did you suspend the Salamander before class? You probably had to get special permission for access to the Boomslang skin! You—"

It seemed anger had wiped any trace of shame from his system, his eyes not struggling to meet hers now, "Right, like cracking my skull to get the edge in Transfiguration doesn't require forethought. You knew the essays were due Monday—and all you needed was one grade to finally beat me! You set up a move like that, throw me off for a day or two, and then you get rewarded for it. And Merlin forbid anyone question the 'Gryffindor Princess'—daughter of two war heroes, Prefect, front Chaser, teacher's pet—"

"That's bullshit, Malfoy! I earned what I have, every position and accolade was hard bloody work, nothing more—"

He snorted.

"And who the hell are you to talk! It must've been so hard for you when your entire family miraculously avoided Azkaban, coasting off money you made hundreds of years ago. I'm surprised you even learned to talk around that silver spoon in your mouth!"

Malfoy's whole demeanour changed—he drew to full height, shoulders tightening—taking three fast steps to where Rose stood. She fought not to recoil,

"Don't utter a fucking word about my family, Rose." He hissed, "Don't you dare."

"Or what?" the words were fighting, but her voice wasn't even a whisper. She was too busy noticing how close he stood—the almost invisible blonde hairs that had started to escape from the leather hair tie, how the muscle in his jaw clenched—

"Why don't you just use a sticking charm?" she whispered, accidentally out loud.

He froze, "What?"

It felt like the classroom had shrunk, the walls restricting them to these close quarters. Or maybe it was feeling as though they occupied every space, the tension between them filling it up—like a solid, grabbable thing,

She didn't need to explain herself, but she did, "If you use a sticking charm," she explained quietly, "for tying your hair up, little strands won't fall out."

He stumbled, confused enough to respond to her ridiculous comment, "I, um, I don't like the feeling of the charm. It tugs."

Malfoy stepped back suddenly, and the tension in the air was popped as though someone had run through it with a pin, "I'm—" he went to run his hand through his hair, a reflex, before remembering it was tied up, and he forced his hand to drop,

"I'm going to grab the ingredients. We're wasting time."

"Ok. That's fine. Do that." She replied stiffly.

Rose tried to tune out the sound of Malfoy rustling through the cupboards, doing better when she pretended he wasn't there. She re-lit the cauldron, perfecting the temperature four times more than necessary, before waiting for him to set up their ingredient preparation.

"Is the temperature set right?"

"I'm not a complete idiot." She huffed, and he snorted as though he disagreed.

When they started the chopping and weighing, it became painfully obvious that the workload was reasonable for one person, but was not quite enough to keep two people occupied. It didn't help that either party refused to touch or be near the other, and Rose found herself doing some awkward hovering.

"You know," Malfoy said conversationally after nearly twenty minutes of silence, "nobody can push my buttons like you, _Roza_. It's a skill, really."

"Me? _You're_ the shit-stirring one. You seek me out!"

"But you're so fun to wind-up. You make it easy."

"Prat." She snapped.

"See?" that smirk was back again, and Rose's urge to punch it off his face hadn't calmed.

But she knew why he'd picked the fight. And that was because ending a conversation like this—snapping, growling, smirking—was so much more comfortable and familiar than ending a conversation where the lines were blurred.

* * *

Slughorn arrived to let them out, apparently surprised when he found the two of them in one piece. Apart from their early argument, the rest of their detention had been surprisingly quiet. They snapped occasionally—that couldn't be avoided—but it seemed as though they'd mutually agreed that silence was the most painless way to pass the hours, just focusing on perfecting their potion.

Rose's friends were waiting for her dinner, watching anxiously as she approached the table and took a seat.

There was a tense silence—everyone watched her—and Rose focused on cutting herself a slice of steak and kidney pie.

"Well?" Tessie finally burst, and Rose lifted her gaze,

"It went exactly as you'd expect." Rose replied with a shrug, tugging a plate of green beans closer to herself.

"You two finally resolved all that sexual tension?" Georgette guessed, and Rose's brain chose that moment to remember a leather hair tie, and wisps of white-blonde hair.

"There's no sexual tension between us." Rose snapped, her face colouring, "All we did was argue. He insinuated that I'm treated preferentially because of my name, and I insinuated he was privileged because of his."

There was another silence, before Tessie laughed, "Well, that was anticlimactic."

"In what way?"

"It's just," Magda added quickly, "usually after any interaction with Malfoy, you usually bitch about him for at least an hour. Not," she amended, at Rose's raised brow, "that that is unjustified. We were just expecting the Malfoy rant of the year."

"It's kind of what you do." Tessie shrugged, "You fight with Malfoy, and then you come tell us how awful he is."

"Well," Rose was feeling defensive, as she recalled just how many times she'd done exactly that, "maybe I'm over Malfoy. I have far more important things to worry about than that prat. He is barely a blip in my day."

Her proclamation was met with another silence, and each of her dormmates watched her concernedly.

"What?" Rose asked.

"Oh my God," Georgette declared with absolute sincerity, "you totally snogged him."

"I didn't—!"

"Shh!" Tessie said quickly, ending the almost-argument, "Why on earth is Ewan Diggory walking towards us?"

" _Christ_ ," Magda groaned, "pass me an onion tart, quick."

"Why—"

"Now!"

Tessie shoved the tart into Magda's outstretched hand, and the girl promptly shoved the whole thing into her mouth.

By the time Ewan arrived next to them—his little piggy nose pompously in the air, like usual—Magda had chewed and swallowed the tart, and was grabbing for another.

"Hello, Magda," Ewan began, ignoring the girls around her, "I apologise for interrupting your dinner, but I was wondering if we could chat outside the hall for a moment, about this weekend?"

"Hello to you to, Diggory," Tessie muttered darkly, and Rose tried to suppress a snort of laughter.

"Couldn't we wait until after dessert, Diggory? I'm eating at the minute." She waved an onion tart, which she was halfway through.

Ewan looked a little put out—Rose pitied him for half a second before he opened his mouth, "Well, my schedule is rather full, being Head Boy and all, so it is a struggle to—"

"Alright, fine." Magda said quickly, "How about you go out there, and I'll meet you as soon as I've finished my tart?"

Ewan's brow was creased, but he recognized the compromise, "Well, ok. But please be along quickly, as I don't have time to dally about waiting, being Head Boy and all."

"Just a minute, I promise." Magda smile was too wide—only someone who knew her well knew it was patronizing, and Ewan headed for the doors.

"Rose Jean Weasley-Granger," Magda growled, as soon Ewan was out of earshot, "You owe me big time for this. I swear to Merlin, that boy is such a prat."

She rose, grabbing more onion tarts and stuffing them in her pockets.

"But he's enamoured with you, Mags," Georgette grinned, "And he probably doesn't have time for crushes, being Head Boy and all."

The group burst into giggles, and even Magda dark expression softened a little, "Christ."

"What on earth are all the onion tarts for Magda?" Tessie asked, as Magda stepped away from the table.

"Well I don't want the prat to try kiss me, do I?" was Magda's parting explanation, before she stomped off to meet with Ewan.

* * *

Rose felt a little bad for Magda, seeing as it was Rose's fault that she had to go on a date with Ewan. It seemed silly now—the altered roster had only ended in argument, and Rose had never managed to give Malfoy her scripted apology anyway.

Ewan had been crushing on Magda for years, and he attempted to ask her out at least once a month. It was so predictable that it was practically clockwork. Boys were like moths to flame around Magda—the girl just rolled her eyes, as though male attention were some giant inconvenience to her.

But actually, if Rose thought about it, each of her friends had their fair share of attention. Tessie had the long-distance German boyfriend she kept writing to, even if none of the others had seen a photo of him. Georgette knew lots of boys from the Quidditch club she played with in summer, and—if the stories she regaled with glee were true—she knew a few of them in the biblical sense, making good use of the unisex shower rooms.

Rose was the only one who didn't really get looked at like that. Her closest male friend was Albus—and she had the feeling cousins didn't count. No boys asked her out—not like Magda. No boys wrote her—not like Tessie. The last contact of intimate nature she had had been a sloppy snog with Willem Fowle, in a game of Truth or Dare at Georgette's birthday party back in July.

She wasn't much into self-pity, it was simply a bitter observation that made her chest hurt a little. The little anxious voice inside of her—loud when it chose to speak—grabbed the idea and ran, and Rose found herself running through her flaws, imaging what boys said about her when they thought she couldn't hear.

Once, when they'd been in third year, Malfoy had launched a particularly vicious attack. They'd been walking out of Herbology, and Rose had one upped Malfoy in class. He decided, in his anger, to loudly list each and every one of her physical flaws, so everyone could hear.

"Yeah, but who'd want to look like that? Hair like a bird's nest, those ridiculous freckles. Flat chest, bulky calves—I'd mistake her for a man if her hair weren't so long. And if you could get past that, there's such an insufferable personality underneath it all; it doesn't nearly make up for her physical deficits."

Rose had managed to hold her tears until she'd reached the dorm, as not to be seen by Malfoy. But when she'd finally reached the comfort of her dorm, the floodgates had opened. She'd been so self-conscious that she'd even tried to charm the freckles off her face—luckily the spell had been a dud.

Now, at least, she knew Malfoy's attack was a cutting response to being beaten in class, but the nasty little voice never hesitated to remind her of the words. Especially now—when she felt the sting of unspoken rejection—all the words tangled up in horrible knots in her mind, barring sleep.

At one am—when her exhaustion and inability to sleep reached its frustrating height—Rose rolled out of bed, grabbing a few things, before heading briskly out of the Gryffindor tower.

* * *

 **A/N: As always, reviewed are super appreciated, I'm glad you all seem to be enjoying this so far!**


	5. No Such Jade as You

_Thursday 1_ _st_ _December_

\- Seven-

In the morning, Rose resolved that she wouldn't talk to her friends about Malfoy anymore. The girls were right—her predictability around the blonde was embarrassing.

But, it didn't last long. Even if, in Rose's defence, she wasn't the one to bring it up.

She'd been in Transfiguration—it was her turn with Albus—and the two were practicing _vera verto_ , writing a stage-by-stage observation of the spell. Rose was doing the practical—an area Albus struggled with greatly.

"Hugo didn't appreciate you teasing him about his book the other day." Albus said reproachfully, as Rose flicked her wand in the direction of the goblet before then. It squawked indignantly as it turned back into a cockatoo. Albus cringed.

"What book?"

"The one your Dad sent him—the _Charming Witches_ one." Albus explained patiently.

Rose scoffed, her attention on their work, "That old piece of rubbish? As though there are twelve perfect ways to get into someone's pants. Ridiculous."

She transfigured the bird back again—jotting down a note, as Albus didn't seem to be paying attention.

"He just wanted some advice."

"That book is the last place he should be looking." Rose lifted her wand again—transfiguring, making a little note. Maybe the Sentience Transfiguration Theory was incorrect, as the cockatoo didn't look particularly pleased at its present treatment. Rose supposed she wouldn't be happy as a water goblet either.

"Rose."

She recognized the frustration in her cousin's tone, and she placed her quill down, giving him her full attention. He'd always been like this—a paragon of equality, always concerned for the wellbeing of those around him. The animal rights (and resulting vegetarianism) were only part of it—he played mediator for his human companions too. And he was so adept at it, acknowledging other's emotions and reaching a compromise for all parties. Maybe it was a middle child thing.

Rose herself was no good at mediation. People's whinging annoyed her, and her response was usually, 'it'll be fine, just get over it.'

"I will," she replied, with a sigh of surrender, "endeavour to apologise to Hugo for my behaviour. Though, I assure you, it's not as big of a deal as you think it is, Al."

"It's not just that," Albus went on, "I'm worried about him. All he does is listen to his music, and stay inside and play his instruments. Obviously he hangs out with Lily occasionally, but he doesn't seem to have any other friends. Have you seen him hanging around with the boys in his dorm? Or anyone?"

Rose shrugged, "He's a bit of an oddball—nothing wrong with that, is there? Boys his age are into Quidditch and playfighting, and he's never been into that. He was practically born a fifty-year-old man."

Albus' cheek twitched, which meant he was gnawing at the inside of it, "I'm just worried he's lonely. I haven't seen him being friendly with any other boys—except for Scorpius—and—"

"Wait," Rose interrupted sharply, "Malfoy? He's been hanging out with _Malfoy_?"

"Yes," Albus replied quickly, "but that's not the point I was makin—"

"Malfoy is being buddy-buddy with _my_ brother? And you didn't deign to tell me?"

Albus huffed, "Only because I knew you'd get like this about it."

"That dirty traitor! He—"

"Scorp is very good with him, and they—"

"I can't believe this." Rose snapped, crossing her arms. Albus rolled his eyes.

"They get along." Albus explained, "Scorpius gives him advice about the girl Hugo has a crush on, and they talk about music. Scorp's been playing the piano since he was five, so Hugo has plenty to ask of him. Hugo almost has a little hero-worship thing going on. There's nothing wrong with it—so don't be immature."

"I can't believe this." Rose repeated.

Albus' eyebrows lifted, "Rose?"

"Yes?"

"Get over it."

* * *

"Stop being friendly with my brother."

Malfoy looked up from the knotgrass he was cutting, blowing a strand of blonde hair from his eyes, "What?"

"I said, stop being friends with my brother!"

He straightened, arranging the thinly sliced knotgrass on his cutting board. It was one of the last ingredients they had to add for this detention, and then their hour was practically up. It had been largely quiet, the silent truce from the previous detention still hanging over their heads. The last thing Rose wanted was a repeat of that—his intimate proximity driving Rose to blurt her stupidest thoughts. No, this time the silence and personal space had remained largely intact.

But Rose had been brewing on the topic of her brother and Scorpius all day. Yes, she recognized it was immature, but this recognition did nothing to stem the emotion. Hugo was a traitor.

"Why on earth should I?" Malfoy replied, raising his eyebrow in a way that was perfectly patronizing.

"Because he's _my_ brother, and I'm sick of you converting all my relatives to the dark side."

Malfoy snorted, "So you have claim to him simply because he's related to you?"

"Yes!"

Malfoy picked up the cutting board, walking it carefully to their cauldron, as not to spill the ingredients atop it, "Do you know how immature you sound right now?"

"Now you know what I hear whenever you open your mouth." She snapped in reply, feeling more defensive now that he'd pointed it out.

He snorted—again, before tilting the cutting board over the cauldron. She was momentarily distracted by his movement, still not trusting enough to pass responsibility over to him,

"Wait!" Rose cried, and he paused over the cauldron, "is that four and a half ounces precisely? Did you use a weighing charm?"

He was silent for a moment, but it was the kind of silence of someone deciding what lie to use.

"Yes." He replied, tilting the chopping board, threatening to tip the ingredients in,

"It doesn't look like it." She said quickly, resisting the urge to reach out and the grab board from him, away from its position hovering over the cauldron. That could create unnecessary physical contact between them, and Rose was rather happy with an obligatory two feet between them.

"What, you can weigh by eye?" But he caught her expression and sighed, "Fine, it's four and a quarter. But—"

"Seriously?!" the anger that was always simmering around Malfoy loved the excuse to explode, like he held the missing fuse, "You're seriously attempting to sabotage the potion, _again_?! What is wrong with you—"

"Oh, get off your high horse," he scoffed, "you really think I'd blow my own grade just to mess with yours?"

"I have no idea what depths your little depraved mind would sink to just for revenge, seeing as you went to such an effort the first time."

"Believe it or not _Roza_ , my world doesn't revolve around yours—"

"Such a sad little—"

"No wonder all the boys in our year call you the—"

"—man!"

"—bitch!"

As their words rung in unison off the stone walls of the classroom, Rose's mouth snapped shut in shock.

"They call me _what_?" she reeled.

"I shouldn't have said anything." Malfoy said brusquely, busying himself with tipping the knotgrass into the cauldron.

Rose barely noticed for shock, as her doubts had received an unwanted confirmation of what she'd feared—she really wasn't liked. It wasn't just apathy she was received from boykind, it was active and conscious dislike and dismissal. Her anxiety practically cheered, ' _I told you so_!'

A faint—and reasonable—voice reminded Rose that it didn't matter what people thought, but her persistent and gnawing self-consciousness was too busy pointing out the current damage to her confidence.

Apparently the silence had stretched on for a while, as Malfoy cleared his throat, "All I wanted to say," did he sound _apologetic_?, "is that I believe a slight reduction in the knotgrass added at this stage will reduce the… dramaticism of the transformation. All the skin bubbling and pain, and the like. I suppose we'll see in the test stage, but it makes sense theoretically."

Rose found herself tucking it all away—shock, hurt, anger—for later analysis, when she wasn't around someone who forced her guard up. She was a little shaken, but underneath that, a strange calm took over, as though she were watching herself from above.

Objectively, the comment hadn't been that bad—especially from the likes of Malfoy—but her anxiety, and the fact it had been on her mind of late, aggravated the sting in the comment, while simultaneously dismantling her defences against Malfoy's usual bullying. It had been like a slap.

"I suppose lessening the knotgrass added would encourage the numbing properties of the boomslang skin to develop fully in the incubation period." She nodded, ignoring the way Malfoy watched her carefully, mouth tugged down in the corners.

She stood over the cauldron, performing a cleaning charm on the stirring rod, before mixing it the required number of times, in the required directions. Malfoy hovered awkwardly, looking as though he planned to say something, but his pride was smothering any words that rose.

"At least," she spoke after ten minutes of silence, "you say it to my face."

Malfoy flinched.

She only had another five minutes in his company, before they parted ways without a farewell, heading in their opposite directions. He, for dinner; she, for her dorm.

Rose made it to the fifth floor before she started crying.

* * *

 _Friday 2_ _nd_ _December_

Rose had composed a list of all the things she needed in Hogsmeade for the weekend, pasting the page in the front of her planner. Being officially December, the trees and tinsel dotted around the castle were a reminder of the looming holidays. Either way, there was a copy of _Class Revolts and Revolutions of the 20_ _th_ _Century_ that Rose had seen at the last visit, a perfect Christmas gift for the far-left leaning Tessie.

Planning gifts for others was a sure-fire distraction for how much Rose wanted to crawl into bed, and try to ignore the rest of the day. Usually her roles and responsibilities forced her from bed on days like these, but it had been second period before Rose had summoned every ounce of willpower in her tired body to go to class. But even when she did, she couldn't help playing stupid games with herself—like letting Malfoy's words roll around in her head, or walking past people in her year and picturing what awful things they'd muttered about her behind her back.

The worst part was she recognized how ridiculous and harmful these games were—but recognition didn't give her the power to fix her brain, stopping herself from thinking negatively. It wasn't that simple, so Rose reverted to her usual methods—distraction, distraction and distraction.

She'd had to sneak out of the dorm again last night, the persistent thoughts so loud and shouty they stopped her from falling asleep.

Now she was heading for dinner, stomach protesting over the breakfast and lunch she'd not felt like eating.

She was on her way down the staircases when there was a shout, it wasn't until she heard it a second time that she recognized her own name amongst it,

"Rose! Hey, wait up!"

She paused, turning to see the figure rushing down the stairs to catch her, noting the blue tie knotted around his neck. She'd nearly been in Ravenclaw—she'd been what they called a 'hatstall'. The Sorting Hat had spent nearly six minutes debating on whether she should be in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. Family allegiance had won out.

"You alright, Richard?"

Ravenclaw's seeker, Richard Selwyn, usually didn't speak to Rose. He was the year above them—the most she knew of him was from Georgette's bitching—apparently, he was a worthy adversary on the pitch.

Other than that, he was mostly unremarkable, dark haired slicked back, and wide set eyes. Rose had never had a class with him, but knew his name at least. She silently thanked Georgette.

"I actually," his hand was on the back of his neck, rubbing, "do you have a minute?"

Rose tried not to imagine what he'd said about her in private—wondering if Malfoy's cruel words applied to the boys in the above years too.

"Sure, what's up?" they were alone on the staircase.

"I, uh—" he laughed nervously, "you're going on the Hogsmeade outing on Saturday, right?"

"I am, yep. Why's that?" Surely this wasn't leading where it sounded like?

"I don't suppose," he was rubbing his neck again, and Rose wondered if it hurt, "you wouldn't want to go with me? A date, maybe?"

After Rose's mantra of self-doubt—especially how it had increased in volume since yesterday—she was generally taken aback by his proposal. As Rose flustered, surprise delaying her response, Richard's face fell a little,

"Look, forget I asked—" he went to move away.

"No, wait," Rose fumbled, feeling guilty for leaving him floundering, "I mean yes. I'll go with you, yes."

His expression brightened, "Oh, well—good! I'll meet you in the entry courtyard tomorrow at nine?"

She returned his smile, "Sounds good."

Maybe she wasn't as despised as Malfoy had made her out to be. She had a date—and actual, scheduled date—with a real-life boy. And Richard seemed nice, his brown eyes were warm with something like kindness, and the gap between his two front teeth was really quite adorable. She wanted to ask herself what could possibly go wrong, but she didn't want to jinx it.

She accepted his offer to walk her to dinner—they discussed Quidditch plays on the way—and Rose felt lighter at accepting his offer. Admittedly, she hadn't really looked at him in _that_ way before he'd asked her out, but often nice guys flew under the radar. And it would sure be a better use of her time than fretting over some stupid nonsense Malfoy had said.

 _Distractions_ , Rose thought, as Richard walked her to her seat, _what a perfect distraction it was_.


	6. One Half Lunatic

_Saturday 3_ _rd_ _December_

It wasn't until Rose spotted Richard in the courtyard—his eyes scanning the crowds for her, presumably—that Rose felt the first tremors of nerves in her gut. She'd been to Hogsmeade with boys before, but never on an official 'date'. Merlin, he wouldn't take her to Madame Puddifoot's would he? She'd never set foot in the gaudy tearoom, and would prefer to keep it that way.

He'd finally spotted her, "There you are!" and pulled her into a tight hug. Rose was a little taken aback—she wasn't really a _hugger_ —but she managed to fit her arms around his waist, hoping he couldn't feel the galloping of her heart against their pressed together breastbones.

"Shall we go grab a carriage?" he asked, finally pulling away.

"Yes, yep!" her voice was two decibels higher than normal.

They managed to keep up Quidditch talk for the carriage ride, though the topic was practically exhausted by the time the carriage started to slow,

"Well, no hard feelings for next weekend's game, eh?" he ribbed light-heartedly.

"I'll be fine, I'm sure." She returned his smile, "But I can't make any promises for Georgette."

He laughed, "God, rough bint isn't she?"

Rose was sure he didn't mean it like it sounded, and she found herself jumping to Georgette's defence, "She's just pretty serious Quidditch, and for good reason too, her—"

But Richard's attention had slid from her, "Looks like we're here." The carriage had stopped, "After you?"

He'd offered his hand, she took it, focusing on descending the icy steps of the carriage without slipping, and not how her fingers were interlocked with his.

When they reached the bottom of the steps he made no moves to let go, and Rose thanked the cold and snowy weather—there'd no sweaty palms in these temperatures. They started on the path to the main village.

But the silence was growing, and Rose found herself struggling to find an interesting enough topic to encourage conversation between them.

"So," Richard began, after the silence had started to grow uncomfortable, "your mother is going for Minister of Magic, isn't she?"

Rose wiggled her nose—it was starting to sting from the cold, "Yeah, she's campaigning to take over when Shacklebolt steps down at the end of next year."

"A female Muggle-born Minister, huh? That'll be interesting."

"Yeah, she'd be the first of the combination. She's really interested in the pure-blood supremacy laws which are yet to be dismantled, which is kind of a major issue, especially after nobody bothered to look into them after Voldemort's reign of terror—" Rose cut herself off, recognising that she was rambling, and blushed. They were on the main strand now—littered with Hogwarts students rugged up in beanies, scarves and gloves.

"Do you think Muggle-borns really know enough about the Wizarding world to go for Minister though? No offence," he added quickly.

Rose's steps slowed, "What do you mean?"

"Well, your mother really wasn't raised a witch, was she? For the first decade of her life, she had no idea that the wizarding world existed. So, don't you think there's some crucial insight she's missed out on?"

Rose stopped, "But my mother has spent more of her life _in_ the wizarding world than out of it."

He was still holding her hand, so he stopped too, "Hey, look, I didn't mean to offend you. Let's not talk about it, I can see you're going to get upset about it."

"I just don't get what you mean by—"

"Rose," he was stepping closer to her now, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger, "let's not ruin our day. I'm sorry—pretend I didn't say anything. Yeah?"

Richard looked properly apologetic, and Tessie _had_ always said Ravenclaws and boys could be stupidly blunt sometimes, and Richard was both. She actively ignored her reflex offence, and sighed,

"Alright, you're right." This was an actual _date_ , and she was sure he didn't mean to insinuate what he had. _Don't ruin it, Rose._

His voice dropped low, and he was stepping closer—Rose ignored her immediate reflex to step back, holding her ground,

"And anyway," he murmured, "Has anyone told you how gorgeous your hair is?"

"Th-thank you." She stuttered, going about as red as the locks in question.

"I was thinking," he continued, "we could go see the Shrieking Shack, if you wanted."

"I—uh—" he was barely half an inch taller than her, which meant they were practically eye-to-eye level, "I actually wanted to get some Christmas shopping done first, if that was alright?"

She was conscious of the people milling around—his proximity was the pre-kiss kind—and Rose wasn't eager for witnesses, aware of the Hogwarts rumour mill,

"Yeah, that's fine," he smiled suddenly, releasing her hair and stepping back, "I've got all day. Where to first?"

He still hadn't let go of her hand, and she nodded towards the bookstore,

"There first, if you wouldn't mind."

* * *

After she picked up Tessie's present, she browsed the other shelves, seeing if there were any new books she might pick up. Richard's interest was sparked by the Transfiguration section, and she saw something resembling Ravenclaw emerge from the boy.

He suggested _Contemporary Transfiguration Theorems,_ a book which he swore helped him in sixth-year Transfiguration, so she grabbed that, and she found a steamy romance novel for Magda's Christmas present—the girl was a sucker for them.

Richard raised his eyebrows when he saw her selection, "My mother's really into those kind of books," and Rose blushed,

"It's for a friend."

But Richard just winked, "Hey, no judgement."

They were at the register when the bell at the door chimed, signalling someone else had entered the shop. Rose didn't pay much heed until she caught the snooty tones of Lauren Avery,

"—don't see why we can't just head back to your dormitory, it'll be nice and empty right now."

Malfoy's tone was short in return, "I told you, that if you wanted to accompany me to Hogsmeade, I had actual errands to run—"

"I didn't _actually_ think you meant 'errands'," the girl purred, "I thought that was just a code-word for fuc—"

"Jesus, Lauren, can you at least have a modicum of decorum while we're in public?"

But then the pair had rounded a bookshelf, suddenly spotting Rose and Richard at the cash register. Malfoy froze, his eyes on her.

There was a long an uncomfortable silence—Lauren glared at her, Malfoy was watching her warily—all while Rose was trying to pinpoint the sudden source of _guilt_ she felt, as though Malfoy had caught her with her hand in his metaphorical biscuit tin,

"Didn't think those were your taste, _Roza_ ," Malfoy nodded at the book on the top of her pile, which just _had to bloody be_ Magda's romance novel. The wizard on the front flexed his muscles, winking at the camera as a fair maiden hung off his arm, simpering.

Rose blushed, for the thousandth time that day, "It's not for me." She hissed, wishing she'd just gone and picked the book up in her own time.

But Malfoy's eyes had shifted, to Richard, noticing the way the boy had shuffled closer to Rose in an unnecessarily possessive gesture,

"Selwyn," Malfoy nodded, a little too curt to be polite,

"Malfoy," Richard returned, mimicking his inflection.

The silence continued, the cashier watching on cautiously, as though he could sense the weirdly intense air both boys were projecting.

"Can we leave now?" Avery whined, and the high-pitch of it pulled Rose from the strange trance. She quickly gathered her books off the counter,

"You wanted to see the Shrieking Shack, didn't you?" Rose asked Richard, eager to move from the store, and as far from Malfoy as she could physically be.

"Yeah," he replied, putting his hand on her lower back to guide her for the door, "let's go."

Malfoy watched them leave, a crease between his brow that had no right to be there.

It wasn't until they shut the door behind them, the bell tinkling their exit, that Richard brightened a little, his strange mood left in the bookstore.

"I love the Shrieking Shack. So eerie and isolated." He grinned.

"But you know it's not actually haunted, right? Teddy Lupin's dad—"

Selwyn waved a dismissive hand, "Yeah, but that takes away from the spookiness of it! C'mon."

"Wait," Rose tried to keep up with his striding steps, "in all that fuss, I didn't get a bag for my books."

"Oh!" Richard stopped, pulling out his wand, "Here!" he cast a levitating spell, hovering the books beside him, "Honestly Rose, your life will change when you turn seventeen."

Rose couldn't help feeling a little patronized, "Right. Yeah."

But Richard didn't notice, charging to the path which led to the Shack.

The little clearing was empty when they got there, giving visitors a generous view of the crumbling building, even more black against the snow. It was a smudge in the white, an impressive mark on the otherwise perfect landscape. On the fence surrounding it stood a little plaque, which Rose rested a palm against,

 _In Memory of Remus Lupin,  
For his effort and bravery in the First and Second Wizarding Wars  
And his sacrifice on 2_ _nd_ _of May, 1998_

Rose knew Teddy had visited the plaque every 2nd of May while he'd been at school, always making the walk alone. Rose, among others, had offered him company, but he'd always politely declined.

"Spooky, isn't it?" Richard's voice pulled her back to the present, and Rose's hand slipped off the plaque. She hadn't realized it had been going numb.

"I think it's kind of beautiful, actually. In a decayed kind of way."

It was like Richard hadn't heard her, "Are you scared?"

He was moving closer, still levitating Rose's books a few feet off the ground, and Rose wasn't sure whether he was talking about the Shack, or being in his presence, as her heart had started to race for all the wrong reasons,

"Are you?" she quickly deflected, noticing how quite alone they were, and how far the shack really was from Hogsmeade's bustling centre.

He snorted, "Nah, I don't get scared by stuff like this,"

He kept advancing, and Rose was too spaced by the whole scene to notice he was practically on her, until he grabbed her chin and directed her lips to his.

They met with a clash of teeth—Rose's mouth open in shock, and his movement eager, too aggressive. Rose tried to find a way to break away, but he was pulling her closer, reducing her mobility and ability to escape,

Then his hand, out of nowhere, was on her thigh, skimming higher as Rose squirmed to get away, but he misconstrued as excitement as his fingers sought the apex of her thighs—

There was a crash, Rose pulled away to see her books in a pile of the ground, their pages quickly absorbing water from the snow, and she was almost grateful for the distraction—

"Shit!" she yelled, dropping to her knees to fetch them,

"Ah, shit," Richard said, "I uh—lost my concentration. Here,"

He cast a drying charm, but the texture of the pages weren't right—they were still crinkly,

"Don't worry," Rose replied, not meaning it, standing slowly and clutching them tightly to her chest.

"Let's head up to the Shack, you can put your books down on something in there—"

She cringed, imagining what he'd possibly expect of her behind closed doors, "No I think—" she was stepping backwards, shuffling away, knees stinging from the cold,

"Here, at least let me fix your tights—they're all ripped on the knees," but he was pointing his wand at them anyway, muttering a charm…

…and they disappeared.

"I thought you said you'd fix them!" she cried, the sensation of losing clothing at his hand inducing nausea.

"That's fixing them, isn't it?" he asked too innocently.

"How is that—?!"

He was stepping towards her again, she matched his steps backwards, "I hate tights, they just get in the way—" he complained.

Rose felt sick, clutching her books as though they were a barrier between her and Richard, "Get in the way of what?"

"Don't be coy, Rose—"

"I think—" she announced, fumbling in her coat pocked for her wand. Underage magic be damned—Richard was being a complete creep.

"You don't need to draw your wand, Rose. It's not like you can use it legally, anyway. Not like me."

His words made her stomach plummet, "I'm going back to the castle, Richard. I need to—" she fumbled for an excuse, her voice shaking, "I need to fix my books. Bye."

Without a word of confirmation from him, she turned on her heel, all but running down the path back to Hogsmeade.

"Rose," the frustration in his voice encouraged her to run faster, but he didn't seem to following her, "are you serious?! Rose, come back right now!" His yells grew fainter as Rose crossed the treeline, "Pricktease!"

She'd just made it back to the main strand when Albus was rushing towards her, slowed a little by the thin layer of snow on the ground,

"Jesus, there you are. Scorp said he saw you with _Selw_ —" Albus' brow furrowed as he looked her over, "Wait, didn't you have tights on this morning? Rose… are you alright?"

Rose clutched her books a little tighter, "I just want to go back to the castle. Please, Al?"

"Yeah, of course," Al looked concerned, but recognized that Rose wasn't willing to divulge at present moment, "here, let me hold your books."

She let him grab them off her—not in a magical grip, but just in his perfectly capable, secure human hands. Rose found herself sighing in a ridiculous kind of relief, and Albus shot her a quizzical look,

"C'mon," she said, "let's grab a carriage."

* * *

 _Sunday 4_ _th_ _December_

Rose had remained silent on the events of yesterday's Hogsmeade trip, and it unnerved Albus. Usually she shared everything with him—he was the first she came to with anything. They'd always been like that, practically since birth. Before Hogwarts, they'd shared a bed at least four times a week, top and tailing in his room. He had bittersweet memories of waking up to her toes tickling his face.

Sometimes—in the earlier days, not so much now—he'd smuggle her into his dorm, and they'd share his bed again, whispering quietly to one another in the dark. But as her feud with Scorp had deepened, in both intensity and longevity, she avoided the Slytherin common room, and especially the dormitory he shared with Scorp.

Yesterday evening, Al had asked Scorp about coming across Rose in the bookstore,

"Odd question, but was she wearing tights when you saw her?"

Scorp had frowned, "I'm pretty sure—why?"

They'd been in their dorm, empty but for the two of them. Scorp had been at his desk, working on an essay, and Al had been in bed, a book idly resting open on his lap, but he couldn't get into it,

"It's just—" he wasn't sure what to share what he'd seen, knowing Rose would be mortified to know that he was telling her mortal enemy. Albus tread a careful line with Scorp and Rose—knowing that what he said could easily create a sense of betrayal in either, so he attempted to avoid speaking of one to the other.

And he knew by Rose's silence, and the fact she hadn't reached out to him, that this was an event of a much more serious nature.

Rose was the type of person whose anger invigorated her, but when she upset she withdrew.

Tessie had told Al as much; they'd spoken briefly after breakfast that morning. Rose hadn't been forthcoming with her dormmates either, just quietly going about her business.

Now he was walking the edge of the lake, taking a mini-respite from the artificially warmed air of the castle before dinner. He liked being near the water, hearing the calls of the remaining birds from the surrounding trees, the skittle of pebbles as the edge of the lake drew them in and out.

He preferred to forego warming charms on these walks, feeling the full effects of the great outdoors. Out here, pinpoint in the middle of the undisturbed Scottish wilderness, away from pollution and noise, the air was possibly as pure as it could get.

A distant sound, breaking water, pulled his attention from the shoreline. Squinting, Al could make out a shape bobbing on the water, dark and indistinguishable. Could be a bird—or could be a creature of magical origin breaking the surface for a gulp of air.

Albus' interest in creatures and beasts—of both mundane and magical—had started at age four, upon finding an injured hedgehog stumbling around the backyard of the Potter's. Albus had become immediately invested in its recovery, watching as his mother practiced an array on healing spells on the tiny creature, before sending it away.

Since then he'd always brought home sick, hurt or abandoned animals, frustrating his parents to no end. His first use of unintentional magic had been at age seven, performing the equivalent of an _episkey_ on a dove's broken wing. After going vegetarian at age nine—he'd learnt the hard way where chicken nuggets came from—his parents realized that it wasn't a phase, but a serious interest.

So, he'd received Oscar—his ferret—for his tenth birthday, named for the Muggle Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Albus liked to believe he was the best cared for ferret this side of the world, receiving a carefully balanced diet and exercise regime from Albus, who'd done extensive research on the topic.

Oscar was getting on a bit now—however well cared for, ferrets only lived a maximum of ten years—and Albus was quickly facing the idea of having to put his best (non-human) friend in the ground.

Albus was half-way around the shore when he nearly tripped over a small pile on the pebbles, which took Albus a minute to recognise as clothes.

Clothes, on the shore? Surely someone wasn't—

Albus scanned the shore again, spotting the dark shape he'd observed earlier. But now—as it seemed to have gotten closer—Al recognized a head of dark hair, and the body that was presumably attached, slicing through the water towards him.

 _Merlin_! The mysterious figure must have a death wish. The Lake was so cold there were practically chunks of glassy ice drifting across its surface, and even the Giant Squid had settled into a sort of hibernation. Were they alright?

Albus headed a little further down the shore—moving away from the clothing pile. While he was concerned for the swimmer, and the potential hypothermia they could develop—Albus felt a little embarrassed at the idea of watching the person emerge, as though there were something a little pervy about it.

Torn, Albus decided to linger a little way down the shore, just enough to watch out for the health of the swimmer, but not enough to _seem_ like a lurking creep.

The swimmer's feet hit the stones—close enough now to identify _him_ —and Albus tried not to watch as broad olive-toned shoulders broke the surface, followed by an equally bare torso. As the water slipped off his figure, steam started to rise off him, his body heat evaporating the icy water.

Albus—half an eye on the swimmer, half pretending to be looking across the lake—felt his face flush, as the swimmer continued to wade forward, the water falling back to reveal waist, to hips—

Surely he wouldn't be…?

Albus sighed as he peeked the waistband of swimming trunks, a dark green strip of safety.

The swimmer wasn't shivering—his lips weren't blue—so Albus doubted the swimmer was in any immediate danger. But Albus didn't have any immediate urge to vacate, silently watching as the stranger shook his head hard, water spraying from his soaked hair. Then the stranger was digging his wand out of the pile—Albus recognized the wrist movement as a drying charm.

The stranger still hadn't noticed him, and Albus supposed he had moved quite a way down the shore out of embarrassment. Flicking another look out across the lake, for the sake of pretence, Albus found it harder to pull his gaze off the stranger, as he began pulling his clothing and shoes back on.

Albus continued to watch—silently fascinated—as the stranger finished donning his coat, tugging a scarf on, before making his way back for the castle.

So, this stranger didn't mind throwing himself into an icy lake—wearing nothing but swimming trunks—but had to wear a scarf for the five hundred metre walk back to the castle?

Maybe he'd been using a warming charm on himself in the water, but he hadn't taken his wand, so he couldn't have held the magic.

Whoever he was, he wasn't in Albus' year. It wasn't impossible to guess his house, as well, as he'd been wearing his casual clothes. But judging but his height—and enviable physique, Albus slyly noted—it was unlikely he was much younger.

Albus had lost track of time, captured in his thoughts, took a while to notice the darkening sky. The sun had well set by the time he reached the castle again, the dark blue of dusk slipping to black.

* * *

Rose's thoughts were all busy again—stirred from her horrible interaction with Richard. Looking back on the situation, she couldn't help feeling a little naïve. Everyone knew what happened when people snuck off to the Shrieking Shack; it was one of the most isolated and least visited places in Hogsmeade. And Richard had been pretty insistent on taking her there—she should've anticipated what he planned to do.

But just the feeling of her tights suddenly disappearing—taken out of existence at the tip of his wand—made her feel completely violated. He hadn't asked, he'd just taken. And if he was fine to do it with her tights, why not the rest of her clothing? Was she seriously one wand flick away from being utterly humiliated?

The worst part was the guilt surrounding her feelings of upset. Sometimes, when Rose got stuck on something—especially something ridiculous, that she had no right getting upset about—she'd think about her parents, and what they'd gone through at her age.

Her mother had literally been tortured, Uncle Harry suffering so much worse at a far younger age, and the feeling of pathetic-ness was just another to add to the absolute clusterfuck of emotions she felt at any given time.

When she was younger, her anxiety had manifested as physical worries—what if the Gryffindor tower collapsed as they slept? What if her parents died in a car accident—didn't they know those were one of the leading causes of death? What if they suffered a fatal splinching—with the combination of Muggle and wizarding transportation they used, weren't they twice as likely to die? How deep did a cut have to be before it was possible to bleed out? What stopped the atmosphere from breaking, sucking every human out to space?

Now her worries were of the invisible, unanswerable type. Did people like her? Where did she fit in the world? Would she be able to pursue her dreams, or would she fall into an inevitable rut to which she'd be financially bound? Would she be able to help the unfortunate in the world? What if she never met somebody to love? Would she die alone? Why did all these concerns seem like trivial bullshit compared to that of her parents', when they were her age?

She listened to the sounds of her dormmates settling into bed, they muttered their 'goodnights' to her through the curtain.

A few hours later, Rose hadn't been keeping time, her curtain was tugged, a face peeking at her in the gap. She didn't need to see green eyes, glittering in the dark, to know who her night-time visitor was.

She shuffled over, and Albus slipped under the covers, putting his feet on her pillow. Her toes tickled against soft black hair, and the two wriggled, trying to find a comfortable position against each other.

And then she told him. He didn't have to ask, because she always knew she'd tell him eventually, like she always did. Rose shared so much with Albus that he was like an extension of her own mind, and almost every childhood memory she had she shared with him. Like when they used to climb onto Rose's roof in thunderstorms, lying down and letting the raindrops pelt their skin as they squealed in delight.

Or, the first time they'd ever been drunk, sneaking a neglected bottle of port from Ron Weasley's liquor cabinet.

Or, when he'd decided to go vegetarian, and she promised to do it with him, even if that promise only lasted a week.

Or, when he'd told her about how boys made his skin feel all tingly, and his chest feel all butterfly-ish, and girls made him feel not much like anything at all.

It was like whispering into the darkness, but she could tell by the way Albus squeezed her ankle—he did it quite tightly when she told him about the tights—that he was there, listening. And when she'd finished, she took a breath, before saying,

"But it seems so pathetic, really. Especially when I compare it with Mum and Dad, and I feel even more ridiculous for getting so upset about it."

He laughed quietly, and Rose felt a puff of breath against her feet, "I know. My Dad was fighting a literal soulless evil overlord, and I'm stressed about the fact I can go up the stairs to your dorm without setting off the slide charm."

Rose snorted with laughter, "It does sound ridiculous when you compare them out loud. My mother was scarred by a clinically insane inbreed, and I'm worried about my Potions grade slipping."

"Well, my father had his mind invaded by a noseless dictator, and I don't know who to cheer for in Slytherin v Gryffindor Quidditch games."

It was ridiculous, but they were giggling, "My parents spent a year destroying stray pieces of a soul, and I get worried that my calves are too muscular."

She could feel Albus' diaphragm shaking with laughter against her shins, "My father l-literally d-died twice, and I'm trying to think up inventive hiding s-spots for my _Wicked Wizard_ magazines."

Rose let out an earnest cry of laughter, which she turned to smother in her pillow, as not to wake her dormmates.

They quietened after a few minutes, Rose's bed feeling a much cheerier space than it had felt all day.

"You'll stay, won't you?" she asked the darkness, and Al responded,

"Only if you charm your stairs into a slide when I head down them in the morning."

"Always." Rose promised, burrowing down into her covers, "Night, Al."

"Goodnight, Rosie."


	7. My Mother Wit

_Tuesday 6th December_

\- Six -

It wasn't all doom and gloom. Tessie received a letter from Elgar at breakfast, and the way her face lit up could've melted the ice off any heart. Any heart, that was, except Georgette's.

"Are you seriously _still_ writing to that suspicious German boy?" Georgette snapped, and Tessie's grin slipped into a scowl,

"He's not suspicious, he's coming over to visit this summer! We'll finally get to meet, and we're planning to—"

"I do _not_ ," Georgette interrupted with a disgusted look, "need to hear about your plans to fuck the German boy. He's probably Grindewald's great grandson or something."

Magda leaned over to Rose, muttering under her breath, "Is it just me, or is Georgette acting a little more… abrasive than usual?"

"Quidditch game this weekend, remember? Ravenclaw beat us last year."

"Oh," Magda nodded in understanding, "I forgot about that. Got any Calming Draught we can slip into her pumpkin juice?"

"Used it all for the last game. I'll talk to Slughorn."

Magda patted her shoulder, squeezing lightly, "Thanks, Rosie."

"It's my ears too." Rose shrugged, as Tessie and Georgette's fight increased in volume. Most of the Gryffindor table had learned to tune them out—but the Hufflepuffs at the next table were getting an earful.

"You, Rose. Are you alright?" Magda was giving her one of those concerned looks, and Rose felt her guard slip a little,

"I'm doing alright now. Thanks Magda." Rose gave her a weak smile.

The girl didn't look convinced, "I don't want to pry, but I just want to let you know that we're all here for you. Even those idiots over there." She nodded in the direction of Tessie and Georgette.

"I know. Same to you, Magda."

Magda gave her a tight, one arm hug, before banging her fist loudly on the table. It shook the nearby cups, and Georgette and Tessie froze in surprise,

"Listen up, girls. It's story time. And this story is called, _My No Good, Very Awful, Absolutely Terrible Date with Ewan Dick-ory_. It's a tragedy, obviously, but you may laugh."

Distraction, it seemed, wasn't a method that only worked on Rose. Georgette and Tessie's attention was captured—pulled away from whatever ridiculous thing they'd been arguing over—caught by the gossip that Magda had been obviously withholding.

As Magda shot Rose a wink, before launching into the tale, "Imagine a snow covered Hogsmeade. Cue one leggy, star-worthy blonde; one, arrogantly tousled Head Boy, with a stick up his arse, of which its size and proportion had no equivalent in the known universe—"

* * *

Rose's day had been a steady upswing from there—but she'd only just arrived at detention with Scorpius, so she didn't want to count her chickens yet.

"What are you smiling at?" Malfoy asked suspiciously, as they set out the day's equipment, and it was only then that Rose noticed she had been.

"I—well," she paused, "What do you think of Ewan Diggory?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes, "Complete prat, obviously. He tries milk sympathy out of people because of the 'Cedric' thing, but he's barely even Cedric's second cousin, nor was he alive when it happened."

Rose fought back another smile, "Something we actually agree on."

Malfoy made an unimpressed sound, and they both redirected their concentration back to their work. There was another fifteen minutes of silence, before Rose felt Malfoy's gaze lift to her. She attempted to ignore it, but the gaze was so intense it felt almost like he was prodding her,

"Yes?" she returned his stare, locking with his bluey-grey eyes somewhere over the cauldron they'd strategically placed between them,

Malfoy opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head, "Don't worry."

He turned back to his work, but she could practically hear his brain clicking and whirring with thought,

"No, come on," She said, "spit it out."

He stood up straight again—having almost a half foot on Rose's own (average) height—looking at her curiously, "No matter, I doubt you'd answer me honestly anyway."

"Try me."

"If you insist…"

"I do."

He sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. She wanted to tell him it was a pointless endeavour—the strand he'd put away was outnumbered by hundreds of other escapees from his hair tie—but she was fascinated by the movement.

"Did you shag Selwyn on the Hogsmeade trip?"

Rose was so shocked she managed to choke on her own saliva, "What? N-no!" she spluttered, "Where on Earth did you get that?!"

He raised his hands in a gesture of innocence, "Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I heard him boasting to his buddies in the library, about how he'd 'popped your cherry' and how you'd practically 'begged him for it.' His words, not mine." Malfoy added quickly, by the look on Rose's face.

The helpless nausea she felt since Saturday—the sense of vulnerability, violation—was turning into something thick and dark. This anger—no, this _rage_ came in like a blinding thunderstorm—and her fists tightened in indignation.

The wanker! Not only had he been completely creepy to her—he'd thought he could lie about the experience to his friends!

"I didn't—for your information—shag him. If you must know," she didn't know where the confession was coming from—the memories had no space inside her as the anger expanded—but she was sharing it, and Malfoy was listening, "he tried to get me into the Shrieking Shack with him, before shoving his tongue down my throat, his hand up my skirt, and vanishing my tights—completely without my permission! I ran away, completely terrified of being compulsed or confounded into consenting, by a seventeen-year-old that enjoyed brandishing his superior magical ability, plus the law that allowed him free use of magic outside the castle walls, _unlike me_." She shuddered at the memory.

Malfoy had gone pale, "What? He—"

"Is a fucking _creep_ , so to answer your question, I did _not_ shag him. And I'd rather marry a rabid Niffler than so much as go near the prick again!"

The space between Malfoy's brows had creased, and he'd rested his palms flat on the workbench, as though he was resting his weight upon them.

Logic seemed to kick in again, and Rose had no idea why she'd shared that with _him_ , of all people. She hadn't even worked up the courage to tell her own dormmates, let alone the human minefield that was _Scorpius Malfoy_ —

"Forget I said anything." Rose said stiffly, avoiding his eye.

"Jesus Christ, _Roza_ , I had no idea—" he said softly, but Rose was flinching at the nickname, as though it were her own Pavlov's bell for cruelty.

"I don't want to talk about it."

He was silent, as though weighing up her demand and whatever 'emotions' he currently felt regarding the incident. Rose wasn't sure he had what one would call 'emotions', not totally convinced he wasn't a psychopath.

But she knew that was a lie—if the way he was watching her worriedly was any indication. He was doing that thing again, where he treated her like a human being, showing her normal human affection. It made Rose feel strange, so she'd decided to ignore it until further notice.

"At least—I won't mention it again—" he amended quickly, "but does Albus know?"

She nodded shortly, "He knows."

"That's why he spent Sunday night with you?"

"In a nutshell."

As promised, they spoke no more on it. But Rose still felt the way he looked at her—in that oddly pitying way—so she found herself desperately wanting to shift the attention off herself,

"So, are you and Avery dating?"

The muscle in his jaw twitched, and she watched as his demeanour shifted—tensing, locking down, lifting his shields—twisting into something more sardonic and less empathetic.

"No." he answered dryly.

"Just shagging?"

His jaw twitched again—Rose felt like a puppeteer, capable of pulling verbal strings to make Malfoy twitch and jump in certain ways. Maybe she could invoke an eyeroll.

"Barely." He drawled.

"She's that bad, huh?" she joked—joking, with Malfoy?!—but it earned her an eye roll, which she thought was well-deserved.

"We need to get the slug in, now." He nodded at the cauldron, "Is it ready?"

It was a dismissal, but a relevant one. Her attention was pulled back into adjusting the heat, stirring, and by the time she looked up, the detention was over.

Malfoy put his things away, before leaving for the Great Hall. He hadn't said good-bye—or even sent a parting nod in her direction—which wasn't unusual for him. What was unusual—however—was that Rose felt a little put out by it.

* * *

Georgette arrived half-way through dinner—the tip of her nose red from the cold—dressed in snow speckled Quidditch gear.

The girls watched with curiosity as she stormed over to them, but she only had eyes for Rose,

"Where were you?" Georgette hissed menancingly, and the outburst was so expected that Rose nearly jumped in surprise.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, attempting to sound polite, as not to stoke the fire of Georgette's wrath,

"Quidditch practice! I had the team scheduled after last period! Where. Were. You?" she growled through gritted teeth.

"How was I supposed to know?"

Georgette still hadn't sat down, and was beginning to attract attention, which she either didn't notice or didn't care about,

"I sent out memos!"

Rose's face flushed, not enjoying her public ridiculing, "You _know_ I have detention on Tuesdays—why did you even ask?"

"I asked because I assumed you care about the success of this team as much as I do!" Georgette was practically frothing now, drawing herself to full height, eyes flashing dangerously under her fringe.

"Of course I do, Georgette! Why would you think—"

"Because," Georgette accused, all but pointing a finger in her face, "I _know_ that you were off shagging Selwyn on Saturday, who happens to be seeker for the team we're playing this weekend! And don't even try deny it—" Georgette continued, as Rose's mouth opened, "because his friends told me directly."

"Georgette, that's—!"

"So now you're trying to sabotage the team, all because you're flustered by a boy!"

Though Rose had tried desperately to recognize that Georgette was stressed by Quidditch—a pressure placed on her by her father's ridiculous expectations—her patience was wearing thin,

"Don't be so bloody ridiculous, Georgette, why would I—"

"Not that it matters anyway," Georgette snapped with an air of finality, "because it's not like your position matters. You can barely put the Quaffle past Malfoy, so why would I need _you_? It's going to be up to me to win the game for Gryffindor. As per usual. Don't bother coming to tomorrow's practice."

And after that announcement she marched from the hall, leaving Rose opening and closing her mouth in shock, looking somewhat like a goldfish. The parts of the hall that had been silently watching the argument unfold now began to talk again, and the volume of chatter increased back to a steady buzz.

"She can be a right bitch sometimes!" Rose said finally, "I know she's stressed and all, but bloody hell!"

Magda winced sympathetically, "Her Dad wrote yesterday, confirming he could make it to the game. Look," she said gently, "I'll talk with her. But don't take what she said to heart—she doesn't mean it. Heat of the moment."

Tessie snorted, "I've been saying for six years that Georgette McLaggen is a colossal bitc—"

"Not helpful, Tessie!" Magda interrupted.

When Rose went back to her dorm that evening, she found the memo. It was a little paper aeroplane, circling around her pillow. The sight of it triggered a burst of frustration in Rose, and she snatched it out of the air, screwing it into a tight little ball. But this movement did little to abet it, so Rose flung the little ball in the direction of Georgette's bed. The girl had her curtain closed, so it bounced off the hangings harmlessly.

* * *

 _Wednesday 7th December_

Albus met with Scorpius in first period Herbology, as his friend had cleared the dorm early for a run.

"Alright, Al?" Scorpius nodded at him.

"Alright, Scorp."

The Slytherins and Hufflepuffs entered Greenhouse Two in two separate parties, a clear line between the green ties and the yellow.

"Two today? I guess today's going to be a slow one." Scorpius commented, and Albus shrugged. He liked working with any plant—he didn't need the excitement of wrestling Devil's Snare to make his Herbology lessons worthwhile. Clipping the harmless excess off a Flutterby bush was just as rewarding.

He wasn't sure why Scorpius had decided to continue with NEWT Herbology—it wasn't a popular course. His friend had made faint mumblings of being a Healer, but it was generally assumed he'd just keep living off his family's fortune, perhaps giving to charity, like his father was known to do. Scorpius had picked up the aristocratic posture and elocution his family was known for—the kind that Albus could picture moping around in a Manor and day-drinking expensive brandy. Though the sharp lines of the 'Malfoy' face was softened by his mother's genes, his chin was still an echo of his father's pointiness.

Admittedly—if Albus was really being honest with himself—he'd nurtured a small crush on Scorpius, in the days before he'd been able to recognize it. It was Scorpius' fault—he walked the charming line between confident and arrogant, able to turn the charisma to full when he needed to. But the crush had died years ago, smothered by too close quarters and a strong platonic friendship. Not to mention that Scorpius was straighter than a wand made of steel.

Professor Longbottom quieted the class down, and welcomed them to the lesson,

"Nothing too exciting today I'm afraid—we're just repotting these baby Shrivelfig plants. But, as you know, they are very resistant to being uprooted or moved, and the roots can attack if they sense sunlight. So, be careful to keep them largely covered by their original soil."

The class were free to start their repotting, and Longbottom milled around the room, occasionally asking questions about the plant and engaging a few eager students in conversation.

Though Albus had always liked Neville anyway—he'd always been a regular fixture in the Potter household—his more relaxed teaching method was one Albus preferred. He always got nervous when put on the spot, stuttering and stumbling when asked a question in front of the class, so Albus liked the way Neville asked the questions one on one, turning it into a conversation rather than an interrogation. Once Albus had asked him why he taught so differently to their other professors, and Neville had shrugged,

"I used to hate being put on the spot, so why would I do it to my own students?"

Neville was on the other side of the room, chatting mildly with a dark-haired Hufflepuff, when Scorpius leaned over to Albus conspiratorially, and muttered,

"So, what are we going to do?"

Albus quirked an eyebrow, "Repot these Shrivelfigs, I hope."

Scorpius shook his head, and huffed impatiently, "No, you idiot. I mean about that prat, Selwyn."

Albus dropped his voice, cautious of his housemates—who were notorious for eavesdropping, "Selwyn? Did Rose tell _you_?"

Scorpius hesitated, but it was so slight, that anyone else but Al wouldn't have noticed, "In short, yes. But I was suspicious anyway, after you asked about the tights."

"Christ," Albus groaned, "I knew I shouldn't have asked you about the tights, Nancy Drew."

"I'm assuming Nancy Drew is one of those Muggle references you like to make, so I'm going to ignore it. But, yes, she told me. After I asked her." Scorpius looked a little sheepish at that, and Albus made an educated guess,

"But you didn't really ask—you probably just wound her up enough so she'd blurt the truth, like she's prone to do when indignant. Correct?"

Scorpius shuffled a little, his polished shoes out of place amongst the dirt, "Yes, but—"

Albus sighed, "Sometimes, Scorp, you can be such a manipulative little—"

"Slytherin?" Scorpius cut in.

"Touché." Albus allowed.

"And anyway, I'm not 'little' anything. You've seen me in the showers and—" his eyes glittered mischievously.

"This is getting ridiculously off-topic." Albus cut in quickly, not wanting to hear the end of Scorpius' sentence, "You know, for two people who claim to hate each other so much, you and Rose know each other alarming well." He remarked, and Scorpius cheeks went a little pink—only more visible because of his natural pallor.

"So, back to the original topic." He said quickly, "How are we going to ruin Dick's life?"

Albus had seen this dangerous look before, and he didn't want to see where it went, "'Dick'?" he quoted.

"A nickname for dear Richard. I happen to think it fits him quite well."

"Right." Albus cleared his throat, "Well, as Rose's friend and confidant, I think _I_ ," he emphasized it as a solitary action, "will encourage her to go to McGonagall, or at least Zhou—Rose's head of house—so Selwyn may be punished appropriately."

Scorpius frowned, "That doesn't sound satisfying at all."

"Justice is always satisfying, Scorp."

Professor Longbottom was nearly at them, so Albus concentrated on shifting his plant into the bigger pot, watching cautiously as the roots gave an ominous little wiggle at the transfer. But Albus quickly heaped soil over them, packing it neatly, so that the Shrivelfig was snug and happy. Al made a satisfied noise, and Scorpius scoffed derisively.

" _I_ happen to think that a well-placed boil charm, right on Dick's—" he continued.

"How's it going? Albus?" Professor Longbottom had reached them, a smudge of dirt on his cheek, grinning broadly.

"My transfer went well, Professor." Albus nodded at the repotted plant, and Neville patted him on the arm,

"Perfect as always, Al. Scorpius?"

Out of all the professors—and his father's friends—Neville was the one who'd always treated Scorpius exactly the same, not once turning his nose up at Scorpius' last name. Even Albus had noticed how some adults were a little cooler towards Scorpius when they learnt his last name—and some people were outright scathing.

"Not transferred quite yet, sir."

"No rush, Scorpius," and then Neville leaned a little closer, "I don't suppose you two heard about the issue we had with these plants last year?"

Both boys shook their heads,

"Well," Neville continued, "you know how the juices from the fig are used in brewing Euphoria Draught?"

They nodded.

"Well, a whole lot of the figs were stolen about a week before graduation. It apparently coincided with a huge party thrown by seventh years. Do you remember anything about that?"

Both shook their heads.

"Ah, well," Neville shrugged, "But on that—how _is_ James doing, Al?"

"He's good, sir. Loving curse breaking training. The basta—"Albus cleared his throat, "I mean, the _boy_ keeps threatening to send me cursed artefacts."

Neville laughed, "Sounds about right. Keep at it, boys." And he moved onto the next cluster of students.

"That party was insane," Malfoy reminisced, when Professor Longbottom was out of earshot, "I accidentally drunk half a cup of that Euphoria Draught—I thought it was wine. I was so off my tits, I went around the Gryffindor common room smelling all the colours."

Albus laughed at the memory, "But speaking of red...you're the last person I'd expect to be championing Rose." They'd circled back around to their earlier topic, mostly because Albus had forced it there. He could be a dog with a bone, sometimes.

"Who says I'm championing her? Maybe I just want to get Selwyn back for being creepy. Maybe I just needed the excuse. It could've been any girl." Scorpius was avoiding his eye, busying himself with his Shrivelfig—or least pretending to be busy with it.

"But it's Rose." Albus pointed out.

"Don't remind me." Scorpius replied, ripping his Shrievlfig from its pot. But a root slipped out from the cluster of soil, and whipped Scorpius in the face.

"Shit!" he hissed, shoving the plant into its new pot, frantically heaping soil on, as to not expose the roots to light—again. It stopped wriggling immediately.

"I don't know why I still take this class." Scorpius sighed.

"An extra hour a day with me?"

"Yeah, well, I'm regretting it."

Albus rolled his eyes, healing the tiny—practically invisible—cut on Scorpius' cheek, and helped him make sure his Shrivelfig was tightly packed.

Albus found his attention slipping once they'd repotted—as there was nothing more to do but water the plants. Scorpius—who was still dark on his plant—was muttering threats at it, something about a sunlight charm and a magnifying glass. The plant didn't seem to notice, or care.

The door to the greenhouse opened, and the movement caught Albus' wandering eye. A figure stepped into the heated space, eyes searching until they landed on Professor Longbottom.

Albus didn't recognize him immediately—the person wasn't wearing school robes—but there was something familiar about the breadth of their shoulders, a little darker than olive skin, and that dark crop of hair—

He was moving now, politely stepping around clusters of students, before Neville spotted him and beckoned him over. Albus' eyes lingered—as they tended to do around fit boys—as Neville started chatting with the stranger, laughing at something he said. The stranger smiled, revealing a row of very straight and unnerving clean teeth, before something clicked into place, and Albus recognized the body of his mystery _swimmer_ —the person in the lake of questionable sanity.

"I suppose," Neville was talking to the class now, "I should introduce you all to our guest. This is Arataki Lockridge—he's my apprentice of sorts. He's helping Hagrid and I weed out the recent Venomous Tentacula infestation in the Forbidden Forrest. If you see him around the castle, don't be shy."

"If you see me around the castle I'm probably lost—this place is a labyrinth." Arataki laughed, and Albus' curiosity increased tenfold. The implication was obvious—he hadn't attended Hogwarts, and his accent indicated he wasn't even local.

"—all the way from the other side of the world," Neville was saying, but Albus found himself very distracted by those straight white teeth, and he threw his hand in the air. Scorpius looked at him like he'd gone mad, and Neville looked at him confusedly, as though he'd not been expecting questions,

"Uh, yes, Albus?"

"I was wondering,"—he hadn't been wondering—"why would you be clearing Venomous Tentacular in the middle of winter? It's a bit cold for gardening, isn't it?"

Arataki laughed, and Neville nodded at him to answer, so he did, "VT actually goes into a sort of hibernation in winter—it makes it easier to destroy them without being attacked." Albus had already known the answer to his question, but the strange mantra of _please look at me, please notice me_ that was suddenly occupying his mind had apparently driven him a little mad.

"You two," Neville was saying, "would get on a treat. Albus is quite the keen Herbologist—"

Arataki was watching Albus curiously now, and the attention had ignited something like a warm glow in Albus' stomach.

"Albus Potter." Al introduced himself, stepping forward to shake Arataki's hand. The swimmer took it briefly— _his skin was so warm!_ —before smiling. Albus realized he wasn't used to introducing himself—most people took one look at the mop of hair, the green eyes, and knew who he was.

"Nice to meet you, Albus Potter." Arataki nodded, his eyes lingering a little too long on Albus to be professional curiosity. And that was it. No 'are you Harry Potter's son?' or 'could I meet your Dad?' or 'have you got the scar too?'—as though the things were genetic—but just 'nice to meet you'.

Just a completely ordinary introduction—and one that Al had never had the likes of before.

"I better be off," Arataki said—presumably to Neville—but his eyes were still on Albus, "but I'm sure I'll be seeing you all around."

He said 'you all' like he meant to say 'Albus', and Albus tried to hide a ridiculous grin.

Then he was weaving his way back to the entrance, tightening his scarf, before stepping out of the artificially warmed humidity of the greenhouse.

"You're acting right weird, you know." Scorpius commented after a minute, as Albus' eyes seemed frozen to the door.

But for all Scorpius liked to think he knew, he didn't know _that_. So Albus just shrugged,

"Don't know what you're talking about."

* * *

 **A/N: Again, thank you so much for all your lovely reviews, they really help with the motivation to write everyday and get this fic finished! At this point I'd say we're about a third of the way into the story. I do have all the main plot points and everything planned out, which is unusual for me, so I know where this story is heading. But I'm still undecided on where I'm going to end it, and I might ask you (lovely readers) for your opinions as we approach it. Thanks again for reading and reviewing!**


	8. It Is Extempore

_Thursday 8th December_

\- Five -

Though this wasn't the longest period Georgette had frozen Rose out for, it sure felt like it.

The girl pretended Rose didn't even exist—her eyes passing over Rose as though she were under a Disillusionment charm. Rose knew that even trying to talk to Georgette was pointless, as Georgette's stubborn streak was completely unparalleled, and she'd ignore Rose for as long as she felt it necessary.

So—it went without saying—that Rose's day had gone pretty shittily. But she, according to Magda at breakfast, didn't have it the worst.

"Did you hear about Scorpius and Lauren Avery?" Magda started, her voice low with scandal.

"They've been shacking up in broom closets?" Rose snorted, "Because I already knew that."

"No," Magda said, looking a little disappointed that the girls weren't as invested in the gossip as she was, "they had a huge argument in the Slytherin common room last night. Apparently, she accused him of treating her like a slag—she called him a commitment-phobe."

That piqued Rose's interest a little, she thought back to Malfoy's strong denial that the two were a couple, "What did he say?"

"He just told her to stop making a scene."

Tessie rolled her eyes, "Slytherins are such gossips. There are literally people starving to death in Africa, and all they talk about is who's dating who. Such trivial bullshit."

There was a silence in the group—usually at this point Georgette would interrupt, accusing Tessie of being a fake activist, as what was she currently doing to help the starving children?—but Georgette wasn't present at the Gryffindor table.

"She cinched it with that though, hasn't she?" Magda filled the silence.

"Huh?" Rose was distracting by the sinking feeling induced when thinking about Georgette—a recent development.

"Avery." Magda explained, a little impatiently, "By calling Malfoy out so publicly, she's put him between a rock and a hard place. He'll either not date her—proving her right, or he'll be forced to date her, with all that honour and virginity nonsense those old families are obsessed with. But she's put her stamp on him—letting everyone know that they've been shagging. He was obviously trying to keep it on the downlow."

Tessie looked at Magda in part amazement, part confusion, "How'd you get all that from a piece of idle gossip?"

"You, dear Tessie, are not thinking like a Slytherin."

Tessie laughed, "I don't think I could get my head that far up my own ass."

Rose shoved her gently, "Hey! Albus is in Slytherin!"

Tessie patted Rose on the head, "You know, Rose, that all Slytherin jokes _exclude_ your dear Albus."

"Promise?" Rose pouted.

"Pinky promise." Tessie said solemnly.

"Anyway, it'll be interesting to see where this heads." Magda interjected, and Tessie shrugged.

"Maybe we'll have a little heart to heart in our detention tonight." Rose giggled, and the other two grinned.

"The only 'heart to heart' I could imagine you two having, would be if you ripped them clean out of each other's chests." Tessie pointed out, and Magda laughed.

"I don't know," Rose shrugged, "he has been a little more _tolerable_ than usual. I haven't wanted to kill him as much."

" _Tolerable_? Malfoy? Merlin, Rose, are you under the Imperius curse?" Tessie poked her in the ribs, as though testing she hadn't been replaced by a robot version of herself,

She coloured, "It's not even a big deal." She tried to brush it off, but she could tell her friends were surprised.

"Well just make sure you send out a 'save the date' soon, I've got a busy summer and—" Tessie teased.

"Oh, fuck off." Rose rolled her eyes, but her friend's matching grins were infectious.

* * *

Even though Rose attempted to pretend that the affairs of Malfoy and his 'not-girlfriend' Avery were of little interest, Rose found herself keeping a curious eye on the boy through their detention.

Maybe it was her imagination, but she was sure Malfoy was crushing the bicorn horn with a little more vigour than necessary, his jaw a little tighter than normal perhaps—but again, maybe just a result of looking for reasons to interfere.

Rose didn't also like the feeling of being emotionally indebted to him—he knowing a vulnerable piece of her. Their relationship had always been eye for an eye, and Rose felt ready for gouging out what she was owed.

She convinced herself—rather persuasively—that this wasn't for comfort, or comradery, but an attempt to settle score, as though Malfoy had torn the truth from her somehow. It was the better alternative than to admit she'd done something as idiotic as tell Malfoy the events of Saturday.

To his credit, he seemed to have kept him promise, not so much as whispering the words 'Hogsmeade' and 'Selwyn'. Realistically, he probably didn't care beyond his own morbid curiosity, which Rose was sure she'd sated.

"I heard about you and Avery." It wasn't as tactful as she'd been hoping for—and it was the last word she'd use to describe herself—but it sounded harsh, and Malfoy stiffened as though the abrasiveness of the words were a physical sensation.

"I'm sure the whole school has." He muttered darkly, his jaw tightening a little. As opposed to finding triumph in the movement, Rose found a microscopic amount of pity—of course, it lay dormant somewhere in an atom in her left toe, easily ignored and practically non-existent.

"Do you…" The sentence sounded stupid in Rose's head, "I don't suppose…" _for Merlin's sake_ , "would you like to talk about?"

The sentence—somehow—sounded even dumber outside of her mouth.

It didn't help by the excruciating silence Malfoy allowed to follow it—his previously dark expression twisting into disbelief, confusion, before settling into something that was questioning Rose's sanity; a lift between his brows, mouth pursed,

"Excuse me?"

"You heard what I said," Rose mumbled, her face flaming. She didn't know what _the fuck_ she'd been thinking, attempting to console Malfoy. And he was reminding her of it too, looking at her, stuttering away, as if he'd trodden in something nasty, and had just found it on the bottom of his shoe.

"I heard what you said, but I'm sure not if you've just accidentally inhaled cauldron fumes or—"

"I just," her explanation came through gritted teeth, "thought that maybe you'd want to talk. Or does it only go one way?"

Malfoy knew how to wield his silences—utilizing them so Rose had the perfect amount of time to recognize how stupid she was, before speaking,

"If you're referring to the incident in which you word-vomited the events of the Hogsmeade trip, I can't agree."

She was getting a cramped feeling in her chest, as though humiliation was running out of space to fill. Arguably, it wasn't standard between them—anger being the only emotion Malfoy was usually able to create within her—but she'd accidentally offered him a personal piece of herself, and he was throwing it back in her face as condescendingly as possible.

"You're such a prick!"

But he wasn't interested in her half-hearted abuse—instead he was stepping closer to her, his face twisted venomously, and Rose's heart stuttered fearfully in her chest,

"Don't mistake these hours of forced companionship for anything resembling a 'blooming friendship'," he hissed, voice low, "or any other cheesy Gryffindor bullshit. The only reason I'm tolerating you is for my Potions grade, I need this potion completed within the time-frame, and fighting is a distraction. Don't try to be nice. Don't get close to me. I'm here because I am forced to be—it would do you well to remember that."

In that moment Rose felt the full effect of Scorpius' namesake—a fatal sting to an area of vulnerability, sending Rose reeling. She stammered, grappling desperately for a response,

"Y-you just hate half-blood girls, don't you?" she accused.

For the weak response it was, she seemed to have thrown him a little, and he stepped back,

"What?"

"We've all noticed." She snapped, getting a little of her stride back, "You'll only ever date pure blood girls. Is that why you hate me?"

His upper hand was slipping—he was furious, and the anger had stripped away his confident cruelty,

"How _dare_ you—"

"How dare I?" Rose could've laughed, just to make him madder, "I bet that's why you don't want to talk about Avery, huh? She's a reminder of the fact that you're a blood purist! Just like your whole family, and you—"

His wand was out, pointing at the space between her eyes.

"Finish that sentence, Rose, I swear—"

She wasn't afraid. There must've been something wrong with her, because she wasn't afraid. Him hurting her; it was a possibility that had never even risen in Rose's mind, not once. For all the times he'd tormented her, made her life miserable, he'd never physically hurt her—not in this beastly and barbaric way.

He'd insulted her, critiqued her, teased her, wound her up—and even stooped to charming mashed potatoes to fly at her—but he'd never caused her injury, not in such a visceral and obvious manner.

He'd hurt her, but he'd never made her feel unsafe.

"You won't do it." She said, refusing to break their eye contact. His eyes were narrowed—practically slits, for the snake he was sorted to—and each of their breaths was shared, synced as though shaving fractions off oxygen from the air they passed back and forward, "You won't."

Rose had started to see Malfoy in two forms. There was last detention's Malfoy—sympathetic, curious, practically a pacifist—and then there was _him_ —reactionary, cutting, cold—as though he was expecting war each time she opened her mouth. But now, she saw both parts of him; angry and understanding, sympathetic and cold, calm and raging.

She was at the end of the wand, but he was the vulnerable one.

He turned, and his wand found a stray beaker, and it shattered into shreds so fine it was as though he'd blasted it out of existence. Rose jumped in fright, but clenched her jaw to hide the feeling.

Then he stormed from the room—not even stopping to grab his bag—slamming the door with a force the shook the walls. Rose was briefly and ridiculously reminded of her fear of collapse, one that Malfoy had just unintentionally reinforced.

Rose was shaken, but not from fear, rather _surprise_. She'd lashed out with a pathetic response, from her own hurt rather than intention to inflict it, but she'd triggered a landslide. It was like she'd thrown a dart in the dark, and struck a perfect bullseye.

She gathered her things, trying to put her concentration into sliding her books in her backpack, instead of getting lost in an over-analysis. That would be for later—most likely—in her bed, stopping herself from falling asleep and driven to tears from over exhaustion.

* * *

She ate, uncharacteristically quiet as she focused on staying present. The girls noticed—excluding Georgette—but decided not to remark in the moment.

It wasn't until they were tucked into bed, lights out, that Tessie was there, opening Rose curtains and parking herself rather stubbornly at the end of Rose's bed, squashing her feet. Magda was sitting up in her bed—which was the furthest from Rose's but still in easy hearing distance—watching Rose concernedly.

"Rose… what's going on?" Tessie asked gently, her voice so sweet and worried that that was all it took.

And then it all came out—with tears to boot—everything about the argument with Malfoy, and by extension, the incident with Selwyn.

"I don't know why I'm so upset," Rose sobbed, a few minutes later, "I argue with Malfoy all the time! W-why," her throat caught on the tears, and she hiccuped, "has it affected me this time? It just feels like we took a step backwards—he was so amicable, and I wasn't even dreading the d-detention—"

"I think that's it, Rose," Tessie smiled, patting Rose's knee, "you put yourself out there, and gave him a little. When have you ever done that before? When have you ever let yourself be vulnerable before him? And he threw it back in your face! No wonder you're so upset."

Tessie pulled her into a hug—as though her body warmth could stem the tears—and soon Magda padded across the room to join them, wrapping her arms tightly around the two of them.

"I'm s-s-sorry," Rose sniffled, "crying all over your bloody pyjamas. I've made a right mess."

The other girls laughed,

"Fair enough, Rose," Magda said, "if I'd had a past week like yours, I'd be crying on everything."

Rose managed a humoured sniffle, before the girls were pulling away, Tessie rubbing her head affectionately.

"I don't suppose she's helped much," Tessie remarked as she withdrew, nodding towards Georgette's empty bunk. Merlin knew where their Quidditch captain had planned to spend the night, but it wasn't in her bed.

"The icing on the bloody cake, really." Rose agreed, and Tessie snorted.

"Oh well, Rosie," she said, "come Monday, it'll be a new week. A fresh start is what you need."


	9. Herald's Books

_Saturday 10_ _th_ _December_

Rose was a little late to breakfast—she'd had to leave the castle again last night—somehow sleeping through her alarm charm set for seven each morning.

The girls were already there when she arrived, which had to be a first, as Tessie never managed to get up before noon on the weekends.

"Why didn't you wake me?" Rose asked as she sat down, a little frustrated that she'd have to rush her routine. The game started at ten, and Rose wanted to do at least an hour warm up before mounting her broom in the icy weather. She hated to admit it, but she'd always been a stickler for routine, used to her mother's micro-managed schedules.

"You looked so peaceful." Tessie shrugged, already preparing a plate of bacon and eggs for Rose.

There was a derisive snort from the space beside Rose,

"If you think dribbling all over the pillow is 'peaceful'." Georgette drawled from her usual place beside Magda, in such a familiar and casual tone that Rose's heart leapt a little.

She hadn't even noticed the girl as she'd sat down, so used to seeing her there that she'd forgotten their temporary feud.

"Feeling alright about the game?" Rose asked carefully, dipping her toe in the metaphorical waters.

Georgette shrugged, "Well Selwyn's out ill, so they're using their bench Seeker—little scrawny third year. I've seen him fly—should be a piece of cake."

It was as though Georgette had short-term memory loss, acting as though she'd never even been angry at Rose. In fairness, this behaviour wasn't unusual—Georgette hated to acknowledge when she'd fucked up, substituting an apology with flat-out ignoring her own behaviour.

But she must've caught Rose's creased brow, as her face slipped into something a little more shameful.

"We good?" she asked quickly—a little apprehensively—and Rose recognized how uncomfortable Georgette really felt—not practiced at apologies—and her attempt to disguise it.

"Yeah," Rose lifted a fist over the table, "We're good."

Georgette bumped the offered fist, before returning to her bacon, and the previous topic of discussion,

"Selwyn's talent on pitch is the only thing that carries the Ravenclaw team. Their Chasers are so textbook its predictable. That's why I've always tried to foster on-pitch creativity in our team. You can't rely on plan alone, it's all—" Georgette launched into a long Quidditch spiel, and Magda shot Rose small smile from behind her glass of orange juice. Even Tessie nudged her thigh to thigh under the table, a little reassurance and reminder that Georgette always came around.

Admittedly, both girls _were_ right.

Georgette was right too, in her offhand prediction of the game. Without their star Seeker, the Ravenclaws had given up before the game had even started. Rose got three goals past the unenthusiastic Keeper before Georgette caught the Snitch, only fifteen minutes in. Ravenclaw's replacement Seeker had been at the other side of the pitch—mistaking a glint off a spectator's watch for the elusive gold ball.

Georgette's mood soared from there, including, at the post-match celebration in the Gryffindor Tower. It was hard to decline as a cheery Georgette shoved Butterbeer after Butterbeer into Rose's empty hands, and Rose found herself pleasantly fuzzy with the warming effects of the drink. Luckily, however, she'd still been sober enough to vanish the contents of Georgette's stomach when the girl evacuated them behind an armchair. Despite that display, she still managed to find a seventh-year boy to snog somewhere around one am, until Rose firmly detached them and frog-marched her protesting friend to bed.

While Georgette didn't seem happy at the time, she gratefully accepting a glass of water and pain potion when she woke at midday on Sunday.

 _Monday 12_ _th_ _December_

"Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?"

Al's concentration shifted a little from his attempt at the Protean Charm. Two pieces of parchment lay before him; one bearing the words 'Albus Severus Potter' in his tiny handwriting, the other blank. The second was meant to copy the first, but he wasn't having much luck. Rose's pieces of parchment were, however, identical, both scrawled with the same 'I'm Rose and Albus smells' right down to the flick of her messy 'l's.

Albus' wand arm drooped a little, "Not yet. But I'm sure as hell not getting Lily another Pygmy Puff. She downright murdered the last one."

"How?" Rose asked, not-so-obviously shifting her successfully charmed parchment away from Albus, as though not to rub it in. Albus refrained from sighing.

"She overfed it." He said bitterly. He'd tried to lecture Lily on proper care of animals, but she'd just kept stuffing pumpkin seeds into the thing—'he must be hungry, he's still eating them!'—until they'd found him feet up in the cage a few months later, his fur a sickly shade of green.

Albus tried the charm again, making the motion with his wand and muttering the charm. Nothing happened. He found himself quietly looking forward to next period—he never felt like a Squib in Care of Magical Creatures.

"You've got to imagine they're already connected in a way, and you're just strengthening the link. As though the writing is supposed to be on both papers, and you're just correcting it." Rose suggested, her face falsely optimistic.

Albus chewed the inside of his cheek, pretending as though his blank parchment already had his tiny script loping over it, proclaiming his weighty name across it. Not only carrying the weight of his father's expectations, the eye of the wizarding world, but the names of two men who died for causes Albus hadn't had to consider once. Brilliant, heroic, highly academic, effortlessly talented men.

And Albus couldn't even work a simple Protean Charm.

He concentrated, his brow furrowed and Rose's advice at the front of his mind, and waved his wand. A few letters, in his writing, appeared in faint ink on the paper.

 _A S s er_

"That's about right." Albus snorted, and Rose practically tripped over herself to reassure him.

"I'm sure it just takes practice." She interjected quickly, no doubt noting the dejected look on his face, "You'll get it in no time."

Rose had hugged him goodbye before they'd parted, and Albus found his spirits brightening when as he left the stuffiness of the castle behind. As he approached the field behind Hagrid's hut, Albus gratefully inhaled the slight hint of dirt in the air, just detectable under layers of snow. It was funny how his best subjects—Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures—smelled so earthy and raw, as if something about it increased his brain flow. Maybe he ought to bring a jar of dirt into Charms, he could give it a quick sniff if he was struggling with something.

"Mornin' Al." Hagrid was already outside, wearing what looked suspiciously like pink oven mitts. Albus was the first to arrive.

"Morning, Hagrid." Albus knew he ought to use the official title for his professor, but Hagrid was far too familiar, "Been baking again?" Albus didn't think Hagrid's baking was _that_ bad, if one soaked it in milk for a few hours before consumption.

"Actually, we're doin' fire salamanders today. They've got a nasty bit o' scale rot that needs treatin', thought it was fit well wi' the exam 'n all."

"Is there a question on scale rot?" Albus feigned innocently. He _had_ been placed in Slytherin for a reason—who was he to ignore Hagrid's obvious soft spot for him, especially when the man was practically asking him to exploit it?

"I didn' say nuthin'." Hagrid winked conspiratorially, as though his hint needed exaggerating.

Albus winked back—despite his occasional student favouritism, Hagrid was still one of the most kind-hearted teachers at Hogwarts.

When the rest of the class arrived, Hagrid handed each of them a pair of thick leather gloves—elbow length—that smelt faintly of smoke.

He then led the—admittedly small—group to his back garden, where a log of fire roared under, what Albus presumed, was a temperature stasis charm. The snow within half a metre of the log had melted, revealing the frozen ground hibernating beneath it. It was instinctual to approach the fire, and let it ward off the chill of the pre-Christmas air.

"….we'll start by tryin' ta tempt them out of the log and into your 'ands wi' food, but if they're not bein' too keen you can summon 'em. Remember, they need ta be fed pepper while they're out of the log, or they'll cool and die. You can only keep 'em out for a few minutes, so keep ya time. And _don't_ drop 'em in the snow—they'll turn ta' steam quicker than you can say 'fiyah'. The chilli powder, which you'll be rubbin' on their scale rot, is in crates over there—" Hagrid nodded in a direction behind the group, "—so ge' goin'!"

Albus prepared the food first, helping himself to a generous amount of pepper—balancing it in a heaped pile of the flat of his palm, trying to entice the salamander from the log, into his grip. The trick was to make his offering more bountiful than anything they were offered inside the log—their usual diet consisting of little fried wood critters and bits of toasted marshmallow lost to the flames.

The crux of it was: animals were basic, and plants too. All they wanted was their fundamental needs met, and their lives were centered around fueling those needs; food, water, shelter, reproduction.

Al didn't find it difficult to put himself in the most basic mindset, looking at each situation with a logical mindset. For a salamander, whose habitat and 'safety zone' was the fiery log, the danger lay in leaping onto a hand, which could be potentially lethal. But if the offering of resources—food for example—outstripped the risk, then what was the animal to do?

Al was the first—and the only—to encourage a salamander into his hand without magical coercion. He watched patiently as it scuttled to the edge of the flames, most likely catching the scent of a wicked treat not far from its spot. Albus' hand was practically in the fire—closer than his peers dared to get—hoping the glove would protect him long enough.

But it didn't take long, the salamander deciding the leap was worth it, cautiously creeping up Al's fingers, freezing whenever it detected a microscopic twitch in Al's hand. It was a fascinating little creature, the entire surface of its skin like molten lava, glowing and shifting as heat radiated visibly off it. Occasionally a little lick of flame poked out from its mouth, forked, pulling tiny flecks of pepper into its mouth. Once the creature seemed calm enough, happily munching on the pepper, Al finally pulled away from the log, his face sweaty from the close proximity to the burning log.

There were some parts of its skin, around the shoulders and neck, that were darkened, as though the lava had hardened to rock. These were the places that Albus applied the powder, careful not to irritate these places more than necessary. Animals felt pain as a warning, and would flee from whatever caused it. Even though the gloves were cumbersome, Al managed it, two minutes before time. He was beginning to feel the heat of the salamander through his gloves, as though the temperature of its little body were slowly increasing, threatening to burn him.

As he helped the salamander back into the log—the sweat on his face breaking out again—he felt a familiar swell of pride, knowing an animal was faring better due to his careful intervention.

"Not just plants, then?" A voice asked, and Al tried not to jump, instead stumbling a little from where he'd knelt by the fire.

He turned, awkwardly rocking into a standing position, pleasantly surprised to see Arataki behind him, rugged up in a woolen coat and other winter accessories. But there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead too, snow-crusted gloves off in one hand.

"I—uh. Yeah." Albus went to scratch the side of his neck—a gesture he did when nervous—but forgot about his leather gloves, not noticing he'd rubbed black soot on the line of his throat until his hand pulled away. "Crap." He muttered under his breath, tugging the glove off to fumble for his wand.

But Arataki was already raising his, watching the spot carefully as he muttered a cleaning spell. Albus felt the tickle of the magic, which caused Albus' skin to break out in a shiver of goosebumps. By the way Arataki was still watching Albus' throat, Al guessed he'd noticed.

A silence fell between the two, loud enough to drown out the surrounding chatter of Al's classmates, to the point where Al could almost pretend they weren't there.

But Arataki cleared his throat, "I actually came to talk to Hagrid about—" then his eyes lit a little, an idea brightening them, "I don't suppose… would you be free to help me on Wednesday night?"

Al inhaled so sharply that he almost choked on his own saliva, "With—uh—with what?"

A little smile lit Arataki's face, one corner of his mouth twisting up so slyly that it made Albus' chest ache,

"I think it would be more fun if it were a secret." He winked, "Meet here at ten pm Wednesday?"

It hurt to think, "Yes. I think—" _don't be too eager, Albus!_ "I think I can manage that."

Arataki's little smirk grew to a grin, turning the pain in Albus' chest from ache to cardiac arrest,

"Fantastic! Wear shoes you can get dirty."

And then he was gone, making his way around tiny clusters of students towards Hagrid. Albus was left alone with his sweaty palms and weak knees, the tingles across the surface of his neck now unrelenting.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you again for all the lovely reviews!**


	10. Born to Tame You

_Tuesday 13_ _th_ _December_

\- Four-

She'd learnt her lesson—the hard way too.

Vulnerability of any kind around Malfoy was a weapon, one he had the ability to fashion and turn against her. She wouldn't talk to him, she wouldn't even meet his eye. Knowing him, he'd probably watched as she'd grown more comfortable around him, preparing his arsenal for an assault of epic proportions.

But as he'd calcified the obvious parts of her, he calcified this part too, ensuring he'd never see the softness of it again. Tears over him were wasted tears, in Rose's newly formed opinion, and she was a thousand times shy of his bite.

He arrived in their usual Potions classroom after her, for a change, and they began to work on their potion. Twenty minutes in, and she'd practically forgotten what he looked like, her eyes only for the cauldron and the flat slugs slithering about in their glass petri dish.

But it was as though he hadn't received the memo from the tightness of her shoulders and clipped quality of her vowels, his smug gaze following her all the way round the classroom. She wanted to shake it off.

"Congratulations on the Quidditch win." He finally spoke, his voice light with its usual mocking mischief.

"Thanks." Her response was so curt and quick it was though she hadn't spoken at all.

"Ravenclaw played like they'd already been beaten. Wonder why—they're not usually so bad, are they?"

She didn't want to respond, chewing her tongue to stop it from working, but knowing more than him had always been irresistible, "It's because Selwyn was sick. He's the only reason they win games, and they know it."

Rose was organizing the slugs, weighing each one of Malfoy's silver scales, which—Rose would never confess out loud— _were_ more accurate than her brass ones. It was an exercise in futility—the recipe never specified the weight of the slugs, only the quantity—but she needed something to busy herself with, giving Malfoy a non-verbal excuse for why she wouldn't look at him.

"Lucky coincidence."

It was the way he said it that had Rose's gaze snapping away from the slug, completely forgetting her vow to ignore Scorpius' presence in every way possible.

And he looked the same as she'd remembered; hair so fine and silver that the escaping strands looked translucent, cheekbones that would make a model cry, same curiously arrogant twitch to his jaw,

"What?" she asked, because his tone had begged the question.

"I said," he repeated, holding her eye contact was a strange intensity, "lucky coincidence." There it was again—his words were nothing on his inflection, as though he were goading Rose into a realization, as though he'd made an inside joke she wasn't in on yet. It was, in her opinion, typical Slytherin nonsense.

"Do you know what made Selwyn sick?" she asked carefully, knowing he'd be unlikely to respond to any type of straight-forwardness. Bloody Slytherins.

"He consumed the dangerous end of a Puking Pastille, to my knowledge." Scorpius replied just as carefully, with a lofty sort of innocence that did _not_ suit him.

"Why would he do _that_?" Rose tried to keep the accusation out of her tone.

Scorpius shrugged casually, strange paired with the not-so-casual way he held her gaze, "Creepy guys do that sometimes."

Rose was almost positive he hadn't done what he was suggesting, "You—"

"Whatever you're about to say, you're probably wrong." He interrupted quickly, as though insisting she not say it out loud. But, if she'd read the situation right, she was unnervingly right.

"Your slug is escaping." Malfoy nodded at the desk. And so it was—the slug had taken the opportunity of Rose's distraction to crawl down the scales, and make a vain attempt at escape across the wooden desk, probably sensing its impending doom. Rose almost felt a little sorry for it as she picked it up, trying not to grip it too tightly as she put it back in the glass prison with its peers, all desperately trying to slither from their imminent deaths.

Scorpius watched her curiously, before speaking, "Lauren hates bugs." He pointed out simply, as though it had some relevance to Rose at all.

She shrugged, "What was it going to do, bite me?"

He snorted, turning back to his own ingredient prep at his end of the workbench, leaving Rose to decode whatever clue he'd just given her.

Why was he so hot and cold? He was nothing like he'd acted in the previous detention, where he'd torn Rose into the tiniest pieces he could with nothing but his tongue. Had he _really_ poisoned Selwyn? And was it, as he'd insinuated, for the fact that Richard had been a bloody creep?

It was like he had an evil twin he switched places with just to fuck with her, leaving her reeling from one detention to the next.

Maybe he'd heard her silent vow to shut him down, and he'd raised her this, an attempt to worm his way back in again. Maybe this was an apology from him, acknowledging the aggression with which he'd treated her in the last detention. But when had he _ever_ apologised for it before?

Or maybe, this was just a new way to break her—exposing her to such extreme temperature changes that she finally shattered.

If he picked up on her confusion—he probably did—Malfoy made no move to comment on it. In fact, neither of them made any move to make comment on anything, and the rest of their detention passed in silence.

Or at least until they made moves to leave. She packed up before him, slinging her back over her shoulder, striding for the door with dinner on her mind.

"Seeya Thursday, _Roza_." He said it so cheerfully, that Rose was immediately annoyed. Instead of responding, she let the door to the classroom slam shut as she left, hoping that adequately communicated her current feelings towards him.

* * *

It felt a little less creepy, now that Albus had a little more confirmation on Arataki's interest in him. And, credit to him, he'd successfully resisted the urge for a while now. In fact, anyone else would've congratulated him on his show of willpower, if anyone else had known about the internal struggle he'd been facing.

So, when Scorpius fell asleep just before midnight, Albus sat up in bed, pulling open the drawer of the bedside table that stood between their beds. Their dormmates slept also, if the snores from behind their bed curtains were enough to go by. The only other sound was Oscar rustling around in his cage, most likely settling for the night.

Carefully, Albus withdrew the hefty piece of blank parchment, and tapped it with his wand.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." He mumbled, hoping his barely-above-a-whisper was loud enough for the map to detect.

Apparently it was, as ink was spreading from where Albus' wand touched the parchment, as though it were pouring from the tip of it.

Quickly scanning the levels, eyes peeled, he spotted the name he'd been looking for, floating unmoving in a room near the kitchens,

 _Arataki Lockridge_

So that's where they'd put him. It always explained why Albus never saw him at meals—why would he bother attending when he could nip into the kitchens for a quick feast?

Albus and Scorpius had had too many debates on the ethics of Al's grandfather's map. Scorpius was a fervent advocate of privacy, claiming the map too easily breached it, and should only be used for the most dire circumstances. Albus was sure this was because Scorp was embarrassed by the amount of time he spent in various broom closets with various girls, and didn't see the harm in keeping a quiet eye on the comings and goings of Hogwarts.

He only ever used it practically anyway—if Scorp were running late for a study session, he'd see where the boy was. Or if he needed to speak with Rose, he'd use it to find her quickly. And often he'd use it to check up on Lily, and his array of cousins, making sure all were attending classes and getting outside and not spending too much time in their dormitories.

Now, admittedly, his use of it was a _little_ questionable, which was why he'd waited until Scorp was asleep. Both boys had agreed to share the map, though Albus secretly used it far more than his best friend.

There was something a little exciting about the thought that Arataki was on the same floor as Al, even if he were on the other side of the castle. He briefly entertained a fantasy of dashing across the castle, racing around corners and curves, throwing himself into Arataki's _private_ room. Arataki, in this fantasy, was happily expecting him, and was lying on his bed, displaying those gorgeous shoulders he'd bared at the Lake—

Albus paused his train of thought, recognizing it was heading an interesting way and it was perfect conditions to indulge it. But really—when would his other four dormmates ever be asleep this early, leaving him peacefully to his business? They had a rule about drawing the curtains, and silencing charms, but everyone _knew_ what you were doing.

He was a little excited now, and quickly tucked the map away in its rightful place, dousing his wandlight.

But, just in case someone woke, he cast a quick Silencing Charm.

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter is short because I have an absolute monster of a chapter coming tomorrow, and I had to find a place to split it up. Thanks again for the absolutely wonderful reviews!**


	11. We Shall Ne'er Be Younger

_Wednesday 14_ _th_ _December_

Albus had spent twenty minutes in front of the mirror in the Slytherin bathroom, cursing his father and his genetics, because no matter what gels he used, he couldn't make his hair stay _flat_.

Finally, he gave up just after nine, storming to his dormitory where Scorpius lounged on his bed, looking ever the part of the aristocrat as he lazily flicked through the pages of a textbook.

"Where are _you_ going?" Scorp asked, his eyes shifting from the pages to watch Albus storm around the room.

"I'm helping Hagrid with some creatures work." Albus lied absent-mindedly, digging around in his trunk for his trainers. He had absolutely no idea what Arataki had lined up for them, and was feeling completely lost on what to wear.

"You styled you hair for _Hagrid_?" Scorpius asked incredulously, as Albus finally produced his shoes. God, he'd never noticed how dirty they were before. Would Arataki notice? Or would it be just dark enough for Albus' apparent lack of hygiene to slide? Maybe he ought to do a charm.

"Does it look alright?" Albus asked, trying to press down the sticky-up bits down with his hands, shaky with self-consciousness. Oscar frolicked around on his bed, happily munching his treat allowance for his week.

Scorpius' tone was so soft it was patronizing, "You know, I didn't think Hagrid was your type. But I wish the both of you luck—"

"Piss off, Scorp." Albus snapped irritably, even less tolerance for snarky Scorpius than usual.

Scorpius sighed as Al tugged his shoes on, having found two socks that were similar colours, "You don't have to tell me her name. But please promise you'll use a contraceptive charm? I won't be a godfather this young."

Albus had to repress a derisive snort; 'her', "I can assure you, it _won't_ be necessary at all."

Al stood now, grabbing his scarf as he headed for the door, and Scorpius' voice followed him into the hallway, "I _hope_ that was a joke, Albus Severus Potter!"

* * *

Arataki was already there when he arrived, which was an immediate relief to Al—this meet-up wasn't a figment of his over-active imagination, and he hadn't been stood up. But then Al found himself getting anxious—had Arataki been waiting long? Had he though Albus had stood _him_ up?

"Alright?" he asked carefully, and Arataki lifted his _lumos_ to make out Albus' face in the dark.

"Alright!" Arataki beamed back—and his obvious excitement was a little infectious, as Albus quickly found his own face bearing the same grin.

"Shall we get going then? We've got a bit of a walk." Arataki asked, and Albus gave a quick nod, before realizing Arataki probably couldn't see it in this lack of light.

"Uh—yes." He cleared his throat, "Yep, let's go."

The moon wasn't full, which gave them limited light to work by, their _lumos_ the only guidance through the pot-holed paddock to the other side of the stone-fence. But for the lack of the moon, it wasn't as cold as Al had been anticipating, and he quickly found he neck behind to heat under the triple knot of his scarf.

He loosened it a little, concentrating on keeping up with Arataki's surprisingly brisk pace and not tripping and falling on his ass. It wasn't until they'd jumped the fence, and the grass turned to knobbly tree roots under Al's feet, that he paused.

"Arataki?"

The older boy paused, "Most people just call me Taki." He suggested amicably, and Al tried again,

"Taki, are we heading into the Forrest?"

Taki's brow furrowed, "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" he fumbled in the pocket of his coat, presenting a crinkled roll of parchment, "Hagrid gave us permission for this outing. You don't need to worry about getting a detention or anything."

Al chewed his lip, "All respect to Hagrid, but I think he has a somewhat skewed idea of what's safe and what's not so safe."

"Oh!" Taki said in realization, as though he'd just remembered that most people were rightfully terrified of the Forrest, "You don't need to worry, Albus. Most of the creatures in this forest are more afraid of you than you are of them."

Albus thought back to his father's tales of Aragog and his human-eating kin, and swallowed heavily, "I don't know—"

"If it makes you feel any better, we're going to stick to the Forrest's edge. I've got a peace agreement with the centaurs, and we'll be miles from the Acromantula nest." Taki explained gently.

Albus felt a little relieved at that, and he nodded, "Alright then. That's fine."

"Trust me, it'll be worth it," Taki grinned, holding out a gloved hand to Al. It took Al a moment to realize he was expected to hold it, and the faint thought of facing man-eating spiders seemed like child's play. But he took it anyway, breath catching a little at the feeling of Taki's fingers tightening around his own, the faint heat of them just detectable through two layers of wool.

"So you didn't attend school in Britain?" Albus asked after a few minutes, noticing that they'd veered off to the left, a few metres from the treeline.

"No, I was home-schooled back in New Zealand." Taki explained, somehow effortlessly stepping over the tree-roots and holes without concentration. But he'd slowed his own pace to match Albus', which the younger boy was grateful for.

"Is the curriculum much different over there?" it sounded like small-talk, but Albus was genuinely curious—the furthest he'd been from Britain was a holiday in Rome a few summers ago, and he'd never given much thought to how magical folk were educated in other countries.

Taki nodded, "Absolutely. There's a lot more emphasis on magic within the environment—how people and magical force bind and connect us to nature. We quite literally refer to ourselves as _tangata whenua_ , which translates to 'people of the land.' If you look at this forest, for example, the whole thing is a living breathing organism, with each plant and creature playing the part of a vital organ—all contributing and co-operating to bring life to the whole being."

Taki's voice was alight with passion now, and Albus found himself fascinated with the way he described it, and the excitement it obviously ignited in him.

"How do you think that affects your use of magic?" Albus asked, sure he could feel the ground shifting and breathing under his feet, at Taki's vivid description.

"I'd like to think it makes me consider the effect of my magic on the surrounding environment. We've been given this gift—you and I—to manipulate the forces around us, will them to be what we want. Magic has brilliant restorative properties, but can also be greatly destructive. We have to remember that even changing or shifting one aspect of the environment can trigger a chain reaction, changing the whole make up of the natural order."

Albus nodded, "That happened after the Battle here. They realized that the damage caused to castle and surrounding grounds had hurt the population of many creatures, upsetting the whole magical food chain. Professor Longbottom and my Aunt Hermione lobbied for the Ministry to set up a foundation for the environmental restoration of Hogwarts, which they eventually did, funded by the Ministry and a few concerned donors."

Taki nodded, "I think it's good they pushed for that. The grounds, especially the Forrest, has one of the most unique ecosystems I've ever seen—it's rare to see such a varied collection of creatures all peacefully cohabitating in a relatively small area. I suppose the magical creatures are attracted to the magic of Hogwarts—it's so powerful, it's like a second heartbeat."

Albus knew what Taki meant, even if he'd never describe it as eloquently. Arriving at Hogwarts after the holidays, it was like something clicking back into place, his wand practically buzzed with excitement. The whole castle hummed, encouraging Al's magic from him, as though it knew it were safe from detection in the castle's walls.

"You're in sixth year." Taki phrased it like a question he knew the answer to, "Do you have any idea of what you'll do after school?"

It was a question Albus often dreaded, but he sensed Taki was asking because he was curious, not because he expected an assured answer, "I'm not sure." Albus replied, "My best subjects are Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, but I don't see myself teaching them. And even Ministry workers need a certain level of aptitude in other subject areas, and admittedly, I'm sort of struggling with my other classes."

"You haven't thought of anything else outside of Hogwarts or the Ministry?"

Al shrugged, "That's kind of what wizards too. You either work on behalf of the Ministry, or at Hogwarts. Some people do other jobs, but often it's not stable work, or you just don't earn a decent wage in the long run."

Taki made a thoughtful noise, "What if we pretended wage and career opportunities were irrelevant? What would you like to do each day? What would get you excited enough to leap out of bed?"

Albus scratched his neck with his spare hand, his _lumos_ jostled a little as he shifted the wand in his hand. He was still holding Taki's hand, but the novelty had worn a little, the early excitement calming into something comforting and fuzzy in his belly.

"I guess I love learning more about nature. The Hogwarts curriculum is only the tip of the iceberg—there's a whole entire world of animals and plants to study. I want to observe them, and then share what I've learnt with others. That would be something I'd get out of bed for."

"Then why not do that?" Taki asked, as though it were that easy. And hearing his optimism, Albus almost believed it.

"It's a bit more complicated than that."

Taki shrugged, "It's only as complicated as you make it, Albus."

But then the trees were thinning—the roots between Al's feet growing fewer and farther between. It wasn't until they cleared the last few branches (which seemed insistent on smacking Al in the face) that Al realized why the tress were spreading, or rather, had been pushed back.

The hill was not natural, or for a better word, had not been born without assistance. It was a lumpy mound, four times the height of Albus—but had been around long enough to almost fit with the landscape, dusted with frozen grass and trampled in snow. Little paths and tracks were worn into it, leading between a variety of entrances all over the mound, dark and wide like gaping mouths. Al counted at least ten, some right at the top, some low, near where Al and Taki stood.

"This is a mooncalf burrow." Albus guessed aloud.

"Correct." Taki nodded.

"But they only come out on a full moon, and it's not—"

Taki grinned, "You're not scared of small spaces, are you?"

When Albus shook his head, Taki's smile got brighter, and he began to lead Al up the hill to the nearest little hole. It was chest height, and Taki dropped to his knees, slowly shuffling forward until the relative darkness swallowed him up. Even his _lumos_ disappeared. Albus, who considered himself reasonably brave, found himself erring on the side of caution when it came to throwing himself into an impenetrably dark cavern.

"Albus?" Taki's voice was faint from inside the burrow, "It's not that bad once you're inside."

 _Deep breath, Albus. Dreg up what little Gryffindor you've got in there._

He dropped to his knees, the frozen ground stinging his knees, even through his thick Muggle jeans. Feeling the earth squeezing him on all sides wasn't pleasant, but the sensation was over in a moment, giving way to a surprisingly spacious passage that Albus realized—as he stood up with shaky knees—that his head cleared the roof by just under an inch. Taki, who was taller, had to stoop a little, but from his grin, Albus guessed he didn't mind.

"Douse your _lumos._ You don't need it." Taki whispered, and Albus—again—put his trust in the unusual boy, muttering a _nox_.

It took a minute for Al's eyes to adjust, but soon the tiny earthen passage was lit faintly, holes in the roof opening the space up to the moonlight. Rays filtered down, revealing the worn mud walls, the dirt floor tightly packed and smooth, pressed down by the cold, and hundreds of little hoofprints. It was all cast prettily in the silver light, and Taki smiled in response to the clear wonder on Al's face.

"I'm sure you know that mooncalves are charged by the moon—only emerging when it's full—performing their dance rituals in some kind of worship of it. But the way they've evolved to use the moon in other ways is amazing. Like these skylights—they somehow worked out how to harness the moon's light with the utmost efficiency. Humans need maths for those kind of things, but they just innately _know_."

Al nodded, "But it's nearly new moon, won't they be in their hibernation period now?"

Taki nodded, "Yes, but that's what we need right now. C'mon." Taki was heading down the passage, and Albus strode after him, watching for stray clumps of dirt on the roof.

"I was out here last full moon," Taki continued, his voice lower, "and noticed this calf is expecting, and about to drop. I just wanted to come out and check if she's ok, and whether there was anything abnormal that Hagrid ought to know about."

They were turning a tight corner now—it was almost full circle—and the path was growing shorter and a little narrower. The whole burrow was growing warmer too, the further in they got, Al found himself eager to shed clothing.

But then Taki was helping Al through another hole, and they were in a tiny room, the floor covered in leaves and bits of dried grass.

"She's over here, look." Taki whispered, nodding to the corner of room. Sitting up, legs tucked under her, was a sleeping mooncalf. It was an unusual looking thing—a cross between an alpaca and a lamb, it's bulky fur midnight blue, with streaks of silver that caught the limited light funneled into the room. Her belly was swollen, her breathing shallow, but her ears hadn't pricked, indicating she hadn't noticed their presence.

"I've got a couple of sheep nuts in case she wakes, but it's unlikely." Taki was ushering Albus over, kneeling on the ground beside the mooncalf's belly. Albus found himself taking the head end, watching occasionally flicker and twitch of her eyelids, as though they barely fit over the large protruding eyes. Her eyelashes were incredible also, long and enviably soft, just as silver as the strands through her coat.

"Can I touch her?" Albus whispered, and Taki nodded, his own hands skimming and pressing firmly across her belly. Albus stripped off both his gloves before lifting a cautious hand, gently laying it over the creature's nose. She didn't make a sound, but Albus could feel each breath as it whistled through her nostrils, and the gentle humming and shifting of something deeply asleep. He ran his fingers through the curly tufts of fur, gently unknotting clumps where he found them. Albus was sure he was imagining it, but her breathing felt as though it had slowed a little, as though she found his stroking relaxing.

"I think she's enjoying that." Taki said after a moment, and Al couldn't help the goofy smile that lit his face, knowing that attempting to smother it was fruitless.

But Taki caught it all the same, "Here," he said, gently patting a spot on the calf's belly, "put your hand here."

Al shuffled around her little, to where Taki sat, pressing his hand on the spot on the place Taki had indicated, noting her underbelly fur was a little softer than that of her face. But then, under the skin, he felt a faint rhythmic pulse, beating away rapidly.

Albus' caught Taki's eye excitedly, "Is that her baby?"

Taki nodded happily, "Yup. It seems fine, I'd say she'll drop within the next few days."

"Wow." Albus breathed, his fingers tickling a little at the gentle thrum, "That's incredible."

Al's eyes lifted to find Taki's, a weird part of him wanting to share this moment with the almost-stranger beside him. But Taki's eyes were already on Al, not on the mooncalf, watching Al as though he were something to be studied—something beautiful and fascinating, something he didn't quite understand.

The intimacy of it made Al's neck flush; he hoped the moonlight turned his usual mottled red into something pretty, the pulse throbbing in his neck only seemed more erratic when measured with the hand he still had against the mooncalf's belly.

Taki was the kind of closeness that was only the precursor for a certain kind of action, the thought of which had Albus sweaty palmed and shaking.

It was funny how his imagination could take him all kinds of places, in the safety of his own bed, but being faced with the potential of even fulfilling the simplest of physical intimacies, he was frozen to the spot, not daring to initiate.

But, maybe, the difference was how real this felt. The only other kisses he'd shared were with girls—at sleepovers, or parties, trying to convince himself to play a role he wasn't qualified for. That had been mechanical, lips on lips, gentle use of tongue. Like actors on stage, reaching the indent in the script; _the two kiss_. A movement for the sake of the audience, not for individual gratification.

But he knew that Taki wielded the power to stomp all over his heart unintentionally, all because Al was invested—that investment weightier too, as he only had more to lose. His first kiss, his first _real_ kiss, and Al found himself counting all the ways it could go wrong.

What if Taki didn't see him like that? What if he'd misunderstood the situation? What if Taki wanted a friendship? What if Taki was straight? What if…

What if Taki outed him?

"Is this the only calf you had to check?" Albus asked, intentionally breaking the moment. He was relieved at himself and angry at himself, pupils so blown out with arousal that it made his head hurt.

Taki didn't seem hurt, or upset, leaving Albus wondering if he was looking for romantic interest in something that was supposed to be platonic. Maybe he was picking up on hints that didn't exist, so starved from attention from his preferred sex that his imagination had decided to fill the gap.

"Yep, she's the only one. And I can't find anything abnormal, so shall we head back? It's getting late."

Albus made noises of agreement, and Taki offered him a hand to help him from the dirt floor.

Maybe his imagination was overactive, maybe he was starved for attention, but the way Taki refused to let go of his hand, weaving their fingers together on the walk back, that was nothing but real.

"Next Wednesday?" Taki asked, when they'd reached the back entrance of the castle. Both boys hovered in the archway away from the cold, but were reluctant to enter, as though going back inside would be acknowledging an end to their evening.

"Yeah. That sounds good."

"Great." Taki beamed with an ease Albus wished he could bottle, "it's a date."

And before Albus could doubt it, before his mind could undermine the innuendo in Taki's words, the older boy leaned forward, pressing a warm kiss to Albus' stinging cheek. Albus knew, without words, it was an unspoken response to Al's earlier doubts, like Taki had read his mind. Paired with a sympathetic smile—which whispered _I know, I know_ —with nothing more than the twist of Taki's mouth.

"Goodnight, Albus." Taki was pulling his hands from Al's, after one final swipe across Al's bare knuckles with his thumb, he was slipping inside the castle, the smell of dirt and wool following him.

* * *

It was almost midnight when Rose left the castle, broomstick tucked under one arm, jumper under another. Though she resolved _not_ to lose any sleep over the likes of Malfoy, she found it happening—even when she'd asked herself specifically not to. She'd finally decided that lying around, getting angry about her inability to fall asleep was pathetic, and she'd headed out for her usual distraction tactic.

She donned the jumper she'd grabbed once she'd reached the pitch, casting a warming charm over her bare fingers and toes, ready to mount her broom and take off. She didn't like to cast a complete warming charm—the sting of the cold on her face seemed to freeze her brain a little, slowly the fervent movement of her more insistent thoughts.

Hovering, she did a few warm up loops around the pitch, barely two feet off the ground. When she'd gathered enough speed she did a couple of turns—practicing her direction changes—before trying for a mid-air barrel roll. Her eyes were watering, but her adrenaline was spiked now, making it hard to hold in her giggling as she managed a double barrel roll.

It was a challenge against herself, seeing the speeds she could reach, the fear she could overcome. Even when her self-preservation 'no!' she just leaned forward, pushing the broom and herself as much as she could—waiting until her heart or broomstick gave out, and she had to pull back.

The whole process was important, inflicting both physical and mental exhaustion on herself, so when she finally stumbled back to her dormitory, she'd be worn out enough to sleep.

Most times she didn't do this more than once a month, but with Malfoy and Selwyn, and the other slew of emotional issues her anxiety enjoyed chewing over, she was out here almost once a week now.

It was unlikely she'd be discovered—the Quidditch pitch wasn't part of the Prefect patrol, and no one would dare come out here in winter, so many assumed the pitch was clear.

Which, admittedly, was why she hadn't been keeping than much of an eye out—so she didn't notice the figure on the grass until they were practically beneath her.

Her stomach knotted immediately, imagining somebody like McGonagall or Zhou waiting for her, expecting Rose to drop to the ground, into a pit of her own punishment. Hermione Granger had instilled a healthy respect for authority in both her children—and defying it was akin to damaging a library book (both extremely serious offenses).

But then she considered what they'd say—another detention perhaps? Really, she had to spend two hours a week with her own personal nightmare, how much worse could it get?

 _Face the music, Rose. Get your rap across the knuckles and then head to bed._

Taking a bracing breath, Rose slowly lowered her broom, steadying herself for the approaching ground. She slid off as gently as she could—the groundshock still stung her ankles a little—she tucked the broom under her arm, awaiting her telling off like a good little girl.

But she wasn't granted with McGonagall's pursed lips, or Zhou's even disappointment, but something that was worse and better all at the same time.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"You didn't think you were the only one who snuck out for a late-night fly, _Roza_?"

Malfoy looked equipped enough—he'd worn shoes, unlike her—armed with proper gloves, his broom, and a practice Quaffle.

"I was just leaving." Rose replied shortly, throwing her broom over her shoulder. She had hoped for another half-an-hour in the air, but she hadn't gotten the telling off she was expecting. And if Malfoy was out here for his own fly, it was unlikely he was going to take points off her.

"You don't want a friendly game?" he replied, tossing and catching the Quaffle with a sort of arrogance that was painfully clichéd, but so quintessentially _Malfoy_ that it didn't seem forced.

"I doubt anything Quidditch related between us would be 'friendly'." She could barely make him out—the moon was nearly new—but if she had to guess, he was probably smirking.

"Sounds like you're afraid of losing." The tone of his voice confirmed it—he was smirking.

"I'm sure that line would've worked when I was five." She snorted. For all of him that was shadowed, his hair was so light it glowed, as though it attracted and absorbed the little light the moon was divesting.

"Well, you haven't left yet." He countered, and she had to admit he was right.

"Goodnight, Malfoy." she went to step past him—nothing wrong with a classic shoulder barge—but he intercepted her, invading her personal space in one swift movement. It was impossible _not_ to see him now, all those angles in all the right places, a measured balance of broad and slight. It made Rose and her bulky calves angry—for all his inbreeding, he was far too _pretty_ , and it made Rose want to run her fist through a wall.

"Wait, _Roza_." His tone was an intimate whisper now, as though his words were too private for echoes, and Rose's breath was hitching against every fibre of her will. They'd been this close before—sure—but usually in the throes of her violence, and that was _before_ she'd seen his kind of kindness, inflicted by strategic revenge and petty hints. Before she'd lain in bed, puzzling over his motives, what he _really_ thought, mind churning over a mantra; _does he care? does he care? does he care?_

"If you don't play, I'll take ten points from Gryffindor."

Credit to the boy: he could invoke a mood as well as he could break one.

"That's blackmail!" Rose cried, and he shrugged.

"No, it's Quidditch. Up to you."

She stepped back as though she were enraged, as though he'd twisted her arm tightly behind her back, forcing her hand. Even as a voice versed in realism pointed out that she earnt ten points a day in classes, that his threat was weak and couldn't really hold her to anything.

But, she was pretending that he'd cornered her, so she wouldn't have to admit to herself that she did want to play—she wanted to see how many strands would escape from his hair tie, she wanted to race with him across the pitch, she wanted to make him chase her, she wanted to make him yell in frustration as she tore the ball from his arms.

"You're the worst." She said, trying to summon something like anger to smother the excitement in her expression, mounting her broom as stroppily as one could.

"Yes, but not at Quidditch."

"We'll see." Rose couldn't fight the tiny twist of a smile that time, but she rose quickly, hoping he wouldn't catch it and betray her.

Malfoy lay out the rules—first to put the Quaffle through the hoop won. Then he threw the Quaffle straight up, so high that Rose lost sight of it until it was coming back down, but her senses were sharp from practice, and she managed to grab it before him.

Then she was off, careening up the pitch, unable to hold in a squeal of laughter when she felt him on her tail, trying somehow to overtake her, so he could intercept her throw for the goals.

She tried to zigzag, evading his grasp each time he grabbed for the ball, dancing out of his way with moves that were unnecessarily flamboyant— _not_ that she'd ever show off for the likes of Malfoy.

At these speeds, in the lack of clear light, he could've been anyone, and she was somebody else. Maybe when the sun was up, and they were forced together for another detention, she'd be confronted with the truth of whatever _this_ was—he'd probably find way to hold it against her.

She thought she'd broken away from him, the goalposts looming nearer, when she felt a sharp tug,

"Hey!" she cried, half-laughter, half-shock, "You can't grab my broom! That's a foul!"

"Maybe in a real game." Malfoy growled back, fighting his own grin as he clawed his up her broom, to where she was perched. He tried to wrestle the Quaffle from her arms, the two of them hovering in the air, brooms locked side by side as they fought.

His face was scrunched up in concentration, paired with genuine—not mocking, not sardonic—laughter, he wasn't as pretty as usual. His usual stoic expressions were cool, only highlighting his symmetry, and the features Rose hated on him, because they were too beautiful for his cruelty. But now he was so attainable, so human, it was so far from the bitter aristocrat she usually dealt with, that the hollowness in Rose's abdomen had nothing to do the lack of gravity.

But he was wriggling the Quaffle from her grip, and Rose knew she needed to distract him, gain back the hold she'd lost, so she could fight her way to the goals.

She didn't think about it, just leant forward, and before he could lean back, or discern what was happening—

-she licked a clean stripe up the side of his cheek.

His shock was as she'd been expecting, and she took advantage of his slackened grip to reclaim the Quaffle, racing towards the goals and making a clean shot through the centre hoop.

"Did you just _lick_ me?" Malfoy called incredulously, and Rose couldn't see him, but knew what his features would be twisted into horror, alarmed at the thought of being _licked_ of all things, something so uncouth and vulgar for his fancy self,

"Maybe, but I won, didn't I?" she cackled.

"You absolute creature!" he cried, mock outrage in his voice.

She was about to reply—a taunt about upsetting his quaint sensibilities—but he was racing for her, revenge in his eyes. She screamed, taking off, heart racing as rode her tail back across the pitch. She duck and dove, trying to shake him, but he was stubbornly steady, yelling some nonsense about justice and honour.

Rose hadn't felt like this for years, reminding her of rough-housing with her older cousins. There was an element of fear to the excitement—but it was a safe kind of fear—like feeling fingers brush the back of your t-shirt in a game of tag, only just escaping being 'it'. She was going so fast she could barely see through the tears in her eyes, the wind had torn out her hair tie—the locks scattered and whipping madly. She knew it would be knotted and crazy, impossible to manage in the morning, but for now she didn't mind, enjoying the feeling of child-like carelessness. All she was missing was the permanently scabbed knees she'd always had as a kid, the gappy front teeth that took two years to grow in, and the bitten away nails.

She was lowering to the ground now, feeling that Malfoy had backed off, needing reprieve from the stitch in her side, induced by frantic laughter. The seemingly endless wellsprings of energy she'd had in her youth ran a little drier these days, a reminder of her age.

"Christ." She panted, and Malfoy landed too, far more mussed up than she was used to seeing him. His hair was no longer in its tie either, crazy and fluffy, making him look half his age. His face was red from exertion, and hands on his knees, half-crouched and drawing heavy breaths. Seeing him like this, she could almost make out the child she'd never met, a little blonde-haired snot, fighting to play dirty, and get away from his—probably—overbearing parents.

"I'm still going to get you back." He promised, but it didn't sound quite so threatening between exhausted breaths.

"What, you'll slip me a Puking Pastille?"

Malfoy ran a hand through his hair, separating out non-existent knots.

"Maybe."

She laughed, the image amusing her for reasons she couldn't pinpoint.

"It's getting late, we should head back." He suggested after a few moments of comfortable silence.

"What's the time?"

He shifted him jumper, checking the watch he always wore. Rose had only ever noted its presence because of how unordinary it was for a Malfoy—nothing more than a simple leather band, and plain face, hardly more than a galleon in any store.

 _Thursday 15_ _th_ _December_

\- Three -

"It's exactly one minute past midnight." Scorpius replied, "We should be heading to bed."

She knew what he meant of course, but his phrasing still brought out a blush on her face, one she was fairly certain he couldn't see.

"Alright." She agreed—so out of her depths she was drowning in complete uncertainty. She and Scorpius had never been in such amicable circumstances, the full effect of what had happened would surely hit her later. But it was still dark and things never felt quite real at night. Maybe in the light of day he'd be back all his cruelty cylinders would be firing again, reuniting her with the nasty boy she was well-acquainted with.

But for now, it didn't feel like him—the kindness he showed stripped away Rose's familiarity. He looked and sounded like the Malfoy she tried (and failed) to tolerate, but there was nothing malicious or mocking in his tone or expression. And without it, when you took all of that away, did she know who he was? Apparently not. She'd never considered him in that way, and their accidental midnight rendezvous was forcing her to reconsider that.

The walk to the castle door was silent, as though Malfoy recognized her need for space, attempting to align this Malfoy with all the others he'd shown her in the last few days. But the walk was short—a walk back to London probably wouldn't been enough time to sort her head—and they'd arrived at their destination.

"I'll see you later today." Malfoy nodded—Rose didn't realize until later this had been his attempt at a joke.

"Night." She managed, before he was off up the corridor, broom slung 'casually' over his shoulder. She hadn't been expecting him to walk her back to Gryffindor Tower, but it seemed so abrupt that Rose wondered he'd finally seen the error of his ways, his usual coolness firmly in place—his sweetness a flaw he'd quickly remedied, a lapse in judgement.

The walk back to her dormitory was muscle memory, apart from a brief almost encounter with Peeves. Being a Prefect gave her some leeway though, so night-time sneaking wasn't such a mission as it had been in her earlier years.

The only oddity in her journey was arriving back at her bed, whereupon drawing back her bed curtains, she found two eyes glittering at her in the dark.

She went to squeal, but the figure sat up,

"Jesus, Rose, it's me!" Albus hissed in a whisper, and Rose resisted the urge to smack him.

"Albus Potter! You gave me a fright!" she whisper-growled back at him, fumbling off her jumper and shrugging it in the direction of the floor. Crawling into bed, she made sure to press her cold feet into Albus as payback, but he didn't protest,

"You smell like outside." He stated, in a tone so suspicious it was practically a question.

"I couldn't sleep so I went for a walk." She gruffed—because admitting to Al that she'd enjoyed Malfoy's company—however brief—felt like waving a white flag in their six year war over the existence of Malfoy's much debated 'niceness'.

Normally Albus could tell when Rose was lying, even by emission, but it was clear he was in floating on a plain she wasn't even privy to, so instead she wriggled under her covers and tried to warm her chilled limbs in the heated sheets.

"I was out too." Albus began, the excitement palpable in his tone, preparing for story time. Albus was better at sharing his news than Rose—fleshing it out with artistic descriptions of setting and emotion, building a rollercoaster of narrative suspense before tying it all down into a basic mood or moral. Rose's recounts tended to be more stilted, word-vomiting as she sorted it all outside of her mouth, usually no pause between the event happening and telling Albus.

But now Al's recollection of the nights events were so close behind the actual event it was almost real time, and the story's emotional inflection coming from the boy himself—the way his voice slowed in awe as he described the mooncalf and the pulse, the way his voice lowered in disappointment and shame to something below a whisper when he discussed deliberately avoiding kissing Taki, the way his voice stopped completely when he confessed the way his gut swooped at the sweet, virginal, barely-there cheek peck.

"Wow." Is all Rose had after nearly ten minutes of Al's words filling her curtained-off bed, and both parties seem to fall into a contemplative silence—only broken by Tessie's chainsaw-like snoring.

Al sighed, "Merlin, Dad is already worried about his absentness as a father—imagine how he'll feel when I tell him I think I'm gay."

Feeling was beginning to return to Rose's toes, she wriggled them experimentally, "You 'think' you're gay?"

Al snorted, "Well, you hardly get a letter of confirmation."

Rose nudged him, and he laughed softly, "You know what I mean. And anyway—I don't think it has anything to do with parenting, I think it's just a luck of the draw thing."

"You mean, I won the gay lottery?" Albus asked sarcastically, before tagging on in a much less humorous mumble, "Or lost it, depending on your opinion."

Rose nudged him a little harder, as though she could jostle some self-esteem into him, " _Won_ , you idiot."

Albus _hmmed_ for a moment, "True. I mean, I'm never going accidentally impregnate anyone, am I?"

Rose smothered a self-deprecating chortle, "Neither am I, at this bloody rate."

"I'd hope not—traditionally as the female, _you'd_ be the one getting impregnated."

Rose rolled her eyes, even if Al couldn't see the gesture in the dark, "That wasn't what I meant, you bellend. I was attempting to complain about my virginity, and its presence."

"Preaching to the choir, Rosie."

"Yeah, but you've got prospects now, haven't you?"

Rose was sure that Albus was rolling his eyes, even if it was dark and she couldn't see it, "I don't think a kiss on the cheek counts as a prospect, Rose."

"This week it's a kiss on the cheek, next week it's a kiss on your—"

"Rose Jean Weasley-Granger! What would your mother say?" Albus gasped in mock horror, and Rose tried not to cackle salaciously,

"She'd say, 'Rose, virginity is a concept. It was created as a mode of suppressing women, using their sexuality to brand them in terms of value, as man's olden-day obsession with colonialism and conquering extends not only to undiscovered land, but also over the women they viewed as chattel, and—'"

"Alright, alright. What would your father say then?"

"He'd say, 'what on earth are you two giggling about?! It's nearly one am—if you don't go to sleep right now, I'll put you in separate rooms.'"

Albus snuggled deeper into the blanket, having shed his coat and shoes somewhere on Rose's floor,

"Merlin, that brings back memories. But though I loathe to admit it, he has a point."

Rose didn't answer immediately, she was too busy yawning,

"He does. Goodnight, Al."

"Goodnight, Rosie."

There's a few minutes of silence before Albus speaks, his voice muffled by sleep and the pillow he'd stolen from Rose's two,

"I spose it is Dad's fault in a way."

"Hmm? Why's that?"

"Well, he named me after the village gay, didn't he? What did he expect?"

Rose chuckled in amusement, the sound strange against her pillow, "Did you just call Albus Dumbledore 'the village gay'?"

"If the shoe fits." Was Albus' pillow smothered reply.

Rose sighed, " _Goodnight_ , Al."

"Goodnight, Rosie."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for tense errors, it's very late and I did a very light proof-reading. Again, keep up the reviews, I love opening my inbox in the morning and seeing what you guys think! The uploading may also slow over the next few days, I'm currently moving to the opposite end of the country, so stuff is busy and internet access sparse.**


	12. Hazel-Twig

Rose was justifiably trepidatious about the detention that afternoon. Malfoy seemed to delight in the Jekyll/Hyde act, and Rose's whiplash was almost manifesting physically—the feeling was that violent.

Civility between them was still unchartered territory, as though there were something foreign and strange about ending a conversation with smiles as opposed to scowls—a new dialectic that was ill-formed and mispronounced on their tongues.

Light-hearted ribbing, with laughter and comfort were something she took for granted with others, but had never previously been an option with Malfoy. But now she'd had a taste—she could see the potential of the true depth their relationship could reach, as though she stood on the precipice of what they could become.

But for now, snapping was muscle memory, and Rose would rather stick with her ingrained habits, than to engage the unfamiliar evil.

She could've pretended the night between them hadn't happened, if it weren't for the dirt crusted between her toes when she woke up, or the mussy-haired Albus blinking dazedly in the unfamiliar brightness of the Gryffindor tower.

So Rose was nervous walking into the Potions classroom later that day, but not for the usual reasons.

"Afternoon." Scorpius nodded briefly, as usual, arriving and partially setting himself up before Rose.

"'Lo." She returned, terrified to meet his eyes, but too cautious to avoid them. She settled for a point somewhere past his shoulders, counting the old Potion bottles and knickknacks that lined the walls of Slughorn's classroom. Rose was almost grateful that their professor was such a collector, his opposition to minimalism gave Rose's eyes excuses to wander.

They worked in their familiar silence, the only words shared were on the topic of their task at hand, nothing more than absolutely necessary. Rose reminded herself that it was a two-way street—he was as cool as she—but something like guilt was still stirred every time her eyes missed his, even as his gaze tried to hold hers, asking a question she didn't understand.

Their fumbling was only in the emotional boundary sense, as the hours they'd spent together had made them reluctantly synchronized. Each tackled their individual tasks, with a faint awareness of working together and adding to their potion.

"Has Albus told you about the Yule party we're throwing tomorrow night?"

It was the first sound in fifteen minutes, and Rose was a little startled, "'We'?"

"Slytherin." Scorpius explained quickly, "Did he?"

Rose shook her head, counting stirs with less concentration than she should've been.

"Well, we are. You should come."

Rose felt her face threaten to flush, which was a mottled colour under her freckles, when Scorpius quickly followed it up with,

" _I mean_ ," he corrected, almost sounding angry at himself, "that you and your friends should come, because we want lots of people there. It's on the second floor in the old Divination classroom. We got a crate of Firewhiskey, so free booze."

Rose counted thirteen, before wiping the stirring rod clean on a piece of cloth,

"I'm sure Georgette and Magda will be keen." Rose deliberately tried to exclude herself in the equation, because it felt too personal for reasons she couldn't explain.

"How about the one with the, uh…" he paused, "hair?"

She hadn't realized he'd kept the close of an eye on her friends and the people she surrounded herself with, and the thought surprised her. Everyone had a reasonable idea of who was who in their year, and Scorpius had most likely had a class with Tessie, but the idea of him watching her—noticing who she sat with at meals, who walked her from class to class—caused a strange quiver in Rose's belly, one that hadn't fully settled since last night.

"Tessie." Rose looked up, catching his eyes—undoing a detention's worth of work. It was a moment of instant regret, as going cold turkey on Scorpius all lesson just made her single glimpse all the more overpowering. And he looked exactly the same; his flyaway blonde strands, frustratingly broad shoulders stretching the seams of his school jumper, jaw tight—and his stupid, _stupidly_ pretty face, which Rose could almost still feel on her tongue, like she'd printed it on him somehow.

"Yeah, Tessie. She'll come?"

"Yes." Rose snapped, teeth grinding as her gaze dropped to the worn stone floor. Because Malfoy's shoulders weren't just _his_ anymore—they belonged to her memories of last night, the same form she could barely see under the moonlight, the same hands that had attempted to grapple the Quaffle from her, the same hair that had caught the wind, and it made Rose's heart race like it had on the broomstick but this time she was on solid ground and it was almost like it wasn't the adrenaline of flying but the adrenaline of _him_ and Rose felt—

"Rose?"

He'd been saying something, "Hm?"

"I said, could you pass me that beaker?"

She grabbed it absent-mindedly, most of her concentration on trying not to inhale his scent, as though these thoughts of him were contagious through extended exposure.

But then he was too close—as though Rose's nerves were surprised he had to approach them in order to pass the beaker, close enough to see the tiny baby hairs sprinkled along his hair line, close enough to feel his body heat. And then she realized that the chance of fingers brushing was high, and Rose felt allergic to the idea of skin on skin with Scorpius, however slight.

He reached out— _why did it seem slowed down?_ —and Rose's heartbeat was thumping 'D-A-N-G-E-R' in Morse. The beaker slipped with her concentration, before Malfoy had had the opportunity to secure it. The sound of glass colliding with the stone floor seemed to bring Rose back to herself, her face flaming with the ridiculousness of the situation; Malfoy's presence rendering her incapable of even handling a piece of bloody Potions equipment.

She quickly dropped into a crouch, fussing over the glass as to let her hair form a curtain, hiding her flushed cheeks and blown-out pupils from Malfoy's prying gaze.

"Oh, _Roza_." The boy in question sighed—half-exasperation, half-pity—before dropping as well, not pointing out how much easier it would be to vanish the glass, as though he recognized Rose's need for a minute of reprieve.

They worked in silence, arranging the glass into an unnecessary pile, before Scorpius rose to retrieve a dustpan.

Rose was, again, silently grateful for his offer to stand, as their proximity had Rose's knees shaky and hollow feeling, and she questioned their ability to support her in that moment.

But she managed to stand, and she and Malfoy, plunged into silence once again, finished their steps in the potion for that hour. Rose felt like she could breathe again when they parted ways, Rose heading in the opposite direction up the hallway.

Normally, Rose would've asked herself what the hell was wrong with her, but this time, she knew she wouldn't like the answer.

* * *

 _Friday 16_ _th_ _December_

"I don't know what to do with it. There's so much of it." Rose complained, trying and failing to run a comb through her hair, wincing as she caught a knot, "maybe I should shave it off."

"No, no! Don't do that!" Tessie interjected quickly, alarmed by Rose's morose voice, "Here, I'll help. We can do some plaits; would you like that?"

Tessie set her lipstick down, quickly rushing to Rose's aid, and Rose let her.

Magda, who was plucking her eyebrows on the other side of their dorm, hovering the mirror precariously, paused with her tweezing charm, "I think if you shaved your head, Tessie would collect the locks and glue them to her own head."

"I wouldn't!" Tessie cried indignantly, as she performed a detangling charm Rose hadn't got the hang of (she'd never mastered beauty charms), "I would fashion them into a wig, which I would then wear. Not—" Tessie said to Rose, "that you should shave it off. Many girls, including myself, would kill for your hair. You've been growing it out, for like, ever—"

"Since I was ten." Rose supplied, her scalp tender as Tessie tugged and twisted the locks into something resembling a deliberate style, "I'm getting bloody sick of it."

"But, it's so quintessentially…" Tessie struggled for a word, "'Rose'!"

"She's right." Magda agreed, pulling a strange expression as she continued to pull invisible hairs from her brow.

"'Rose' is a thing now? What else is 'Rose', pray tell?"

"Sneaking out of the dorm at night to play on the Quidditch pitch." Magda pointed out from across the room, who'd now gone from shrinking her brows by tweezing to filling them in with a pencil.

"Engaging fists before thought." Tessie added, and Rose turned to glare at the girl, before a sharp twinge of her scalp discouraged her.

"Being far too worried about what other people think." Magda continued.

"Getting a little deep there, doc." Rose snorted, "are you gonna charge me for that analysis?"

"For you, honey, it's free." Magda blew her a kiss from across the room.

Tessie laughed when Rose grabbed the kiss in mid-air, pretending to throw it in the direction of their dorm wastebasket.

* * *

It didn't take long for them to get ready, but Georgette had spent a whole half hour in the shower, so the party was in full swing by the time they arrived. But thanks to a few—very strong—silencing charms, it was impossible to notice until the door to the classroom was opened, and the girls were ushered inside.

The only source of light in the room were flashing lights in a variety of colours, pulsing and moving in time to music to loud it was impossible to decipher, pounding from an unseen source.

"Right!" Magda yelled over the noise, gathering their makeshift group together, "let's go find the bloody booze!" The girl had been rightfully elected as their unofficial leader, having had the most partying experience between them. Though Magda didn't boast about it much, she'd been creeping into Muggle clubs since she was fifteen, wielding a very convincing fake ID of her own creation.

Magda grabbed Rose's hand, who in turn grabbed Tessie's, who in turn reluctantly grabbed Georgette's hand, but pulled a face while doing it. Then Magda was pulling them through the crowd, a long train of connecting arms awkwardly negotiating clusters of people.

But it seemed like Magda had a nose for free alcohol, as she tugged them to the right place with little preamble. The table was, as Scorpius had promised, heavy with bottles of Firewhiskey, some empty, some unopened and glinting in the disco lights, flaunting the amber liquid inside them.

Magda grabbed one of the empty bottles, transfiguring it into four neat glass tumblers.

"Neat trick." Tessie nodded, and Magda shrugged, passing them out,

"You didn't think I was going to make you drink straight from the bottle, did you? Classless!"

Rose could barely hear the conversation, instead attempting to rely on lip-reading, and what she could see of her friends faces in the ill-lit room.

Magda cracked the cork on the full bottle she'd retrieved, pouring a neat nip into each glass, before holding her own up,

"A toast to Christmas! And Rose, for her familial ties to Slytherin, ensuring we got invited!"

Rose blushed—remembering her little lie about the source of their invitation to the party. She _may_ have insinuated to her friends that Al had insisted they attend, not a certain blonde-haired detention companion who Rose was trying _very_ hard not to think about. Rose was especially trying _not_ to think about how he was in this room right now, probably only a few feet away, maybe a little tipsy, close enough to drag onto the dancefloor and—

Rose decided that a strong dose of Firewhiskey was the perfect chaser for _those_ kind of thoughts, so she tipped her glass back, finishing the contents with a sizeable gulp. The burning sensation down her throat was a temporary reprieve from the other signs of anxiety her body was exhibiting, the rhythm-less tap of her heel on the floor, the spare hand that kept flying to pat her updo, the gaze that kept darting out whenever she caught a glimpse of silver in her peripheral vision.

It was probably why it took her half a second to feel the eyes on her, and she turned to find herself under three concerned gazes,

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" it came out harsher than she'd intended, feeling antsy at the feeling of anticipation, guilty for something she couldn't pinpoint.

"You alright there, Rose?" Tessie was asking, her voice the perfect mix of concern and suspicion to put Rose on the defensive.

"Fine. Why?" Rose snapped, barely able to hear herself over the thudding of the bass, vibrating the soles of her shoes.

"I mean… you did just down half a glass of straight Firewhiskey—" Tessie was saying, Rose only caught most of it by lip-reading,

"Isn't that what people do at parties?" Rose thought she saw a glimpse of platinum hair, but by the time she'd focussed in properly, it was gone.

"People, sure, but not _you_ —"

Rose's teeth were grinding in agitation she couldn't explain, "You and Magda seem awfully keen to tell me who I am, and who I am _not_ ," she reached forward, grabbing the bottle from Magda's hands, who was so shocked she relinquished her grip, "and I think you should leave me alone!"

Her nerves were walking the dangerous precipice between anxiety and anger, building and boiling without outlet. She could feel it turning, unnecessarily, on her friends, whose concern on any other day wouldn't have bothered her. But the nasty voice within her twisted their words, painting it was though they were pointing out her weakness, belittling her. And she already felt two inches tall as it was, her incorrect interpretation affirming the feeling.

"Rose, we didn't—" Magda was saying, but Rose was already embarrassed for what she'd said, and turned on her heel, fighting through groups of people to get away from her guilt.

She'd regretted the words as soon as they'd come out, but she could hardly grab the words out of the air and stuff them back into her mouth—the look on Magda and Tessie's faces had been enough. Even Georgette had seemed mildly perturbed, for once, and that was how Rose knew she'd _really_ fucked up.

In all the drama she'd lost her glass, but she still had the open bottle, much to her embarrassment. Sipping from it would only look sadder, and even though Rose had a decent hit of alcohol racing through her system—and enough guilt to fill ten bottles—she wasn't quite at the stage of desperation to drink straight from it.

Hands grabbed her forearm, not a particularly rough grip, but Rose was surprised enough that she jumped, liquid sloshing from the bottle and narrowing avoiding her clothing. Her imagination ran with the few seconds before recognition, projecting grey eyes and a leather hair tie before Rose caught the voice, facing her assailant,

"You made it!"

"Albus!" Rose's heart both sunk and lifted, in both relief and disappointment, creating a hopping skip feeling in her chest.

"I was worried you wouldn't come, seeing as I forgot to bloody invite you!" Albus was leaning into Rose's ear, trying to make himself heard over the music, hands still on Rose's arm, "I'm such an idiot, I got so caught up in this stuff with Taki—"

"It's fine! Scorpius invited me—of all the bloody people. Where is he, by the way?" she tried to come off as casual, but Albus probably couldn't hear much over the music.

"He snuck off with Lauren, the prick!" Albus' eyes were twinkling, and Rose would've thought Albus drunk if she'd not known any better.

"Oh." Rose felt herself make the noise, but it was swallowed up by the room. At least at that news Rose's anxiety was stripped away—all her finger tipping and gut-twisting sinking into something just under her navel, like a mini blackhole had bloomed there, and was sucking her insides into one feral knot.

Rose needed something to root her to the spot, remind her off where she stood in the moment, and tipping the bottle up felt light for some reason—Firewhiskey blazing a neat trail down her oesophagus, loosening the knot a little.

"We should dance." Rose grabbed Al's hand, pulling him toward the cluster of writhing bodies, an awkward attempt at a dancefloor, "Come on."

She could feel Al's hesitation in his slight resistance, and his awkward attempts to excuse her away, but Rose needed something real, something _physical_ —a distraction. Because she had no reason to be feeling like this, no reason at all for these unfounded pathetic pining—

Someone had taken the bottle off her now, interrupting the motion of lifting to her mouth and away again, trying to lose herself to movement—shunting and shoving bodies with a rhythm that only made sense if she closed her eyes and tried to translate the noise into a beat. It was easier with the warm buzz that had started to creep up on her, sneaking into her blood so gradually that it was hard to discern the chemical from genuine enjoyment.

But there were hands now, shoving cups into hers, pulling her and touching her. She could tell it wasn't Al, she'd somehow lost him an indiscriminate period of time ago. Instead she tried to ride the buzz.

But then, all of a sudden, it built into nausea, as though the Firewhiskey was curdling in her stomach. She needed air—all she could taste was sweat and alcohol, and it was making her guts roil. She tried to fight her way out of the crowd, but it was more like stumbling, tripping over legs and limbs on her way to the edge.

People parted when they saw her, as though they could sense how sick she felt, and Rose was groping for the door, needing fresh air and the bracing cold to snap her out of the trance she'd found herself in. It was a maze of sound and colour, faceless forms watching her pass disinterestedly, until the cold metal of a door handle was under her fingers and she twisted it open.

The silence of the corridor was like a slap to the face, as the door swung shut behind her. Already everything felt a little sharper—though the walls still insisted on leaning over her, and she found some difficulty in not walking into them.

A corner loomed up ahead, and Rose could practically smell the fresh air of the balcony she knew wasn't far away. But the sound of voices came first; raised and angry, and Rose slowed, curiosity getting the better of her, even in a state like this.

"You made me look like a fool!" Female, undoubtedly, but Rose was too drunk to figure out why it sounded familiar.

"You looked like no such thing." There was no mistaking this voice, Rose's stomach roiled but she forced herself to stay put.

"We both know that I jeopardized my reputation to out us—"

"Then why did you do it, Lauren? Why did you announce our physical relationship to the entirety of our house? What did you expect would happen?" Malfoy's voice was hard, pushed to the edge of his patience.

Lauren hesitated, and Rose knew the girl was deciding on truth or lies, trying to conveniently skirt around the truth in the way only Slytherins had mastered, "Because—" she faltered, "Because, you arsehole, you were supposed to come to me! You were supposed to make us official! You _know_ about honour, about the esteem I'm supposed to be held in! I'm a fucking Avery!"

"It's not my fault you backed yourself into a corner, and expected me to bail you out. I don't indulge manipulation, Lauren. I thought you knew enough about me to know that, at least."

"I don't understand why you wanted us to sneak around in the first place! There's nothing wrong with us dating—it's probably expected, in fact! I'm a pure-blood, you're a pure-blood—"

Malfoy hissed, "Jesus, Lauren, don't start with that bollocks. It's nothing to do with purity—"

"Well, then, what is it?!" the girl cried, sounding a little hysterical, "My parents were implicated with the Death Eaters too, you know! If you think I'm ashamed—"

"Bloody hell, Lauren." Malfoy sounded like he was rapidly reaching the end of his patience, as Avery's voice grew higher in pitch.

"Well, what now, Scorpius? Because I'm fucking in lov—"

"Don't." Malfoy's tone was curt, low and abrupt in juxtaposition with Avery's cries.

"But I do, Scorpius! I love yo—"

"No!" The venom in Malfoy's tone was one that Rose was all too familiar with, even if she wasn't on the receiving end this time, "No, you don't! You're just infatuated with the idea of the 'Malfoy' name, of all the gold in my vaults! You want a big engagement ring—a front page wedding! That has to be it, right? Because there's no way you could be enamoured with me as a person; when was the last time we had an actual conversation? What do you _actually_ know about me? And I don't mean the names of my great-grandparents."

Avery's voice was quieter now, meek, as though she sensed defeat, "I know things about you."

"Aside from how I like my dick sucked." Malfoy snapped, and the following silence was like a slap.

"Lauren, I'm sorry—" Malfoy was saying, but Lauren spoke over him,

"Go fuck yourself, Malfoy."

There were footsteps now, and Rose remembered she wasn't meant to have heard their conversation, and moved frantically to hide. But in the fog of her drunken mind, she registered that they were growing fainter, not louder, meaning Avery was walking in the opposite direction.

She barely had time to sigh in relief, as another wave of nausea hit, and Rose grappled for support on the wall, waiting for it to pass. But the distraction pulled her attention from her surroundings, meaning she didn't hear the footsteps until a _lumos_ was shoved under her throat with a growl.

"Merlin. It's you." Malfoy voice stated resignedly, pulling his wand from its aggressive position.

"I—I d-didn't mean to hear." The words were thick, harder to form than usual.

"Christ, you're three sheets to the wind!" Scorpius sounded derisive and amused at the same time, which Rose struggled to process.

"Don't have any sheets," she slurred, "but maybe had a few little bitty drinksss."

Scorpius seemed to double than merge, and Rose rubbed and squinted to put the image right again. The whole bloody room seemed to be spinning, and Rose wished it would stop.

"We'd better get you back to Mother Al, he must be worried sick."

"I'm fine! Todally fine—" Rose insisted, attempting to use the wall as an aid to standing.

"Are you seriously too drunk to stand?" Scorpius wasn't helping, just watching as though he found it funny.

"Jog on, you beautiful prat." She muttered, managing to fight into a standing position before her knees buckled, and she was on the floor again.

"Hmm? Could you repeat that?" Scorpius was laughing, and Rose's face flamed, the conscious part of her brain recognizing that she'd said something she _really_ shouldn't have.

"Here." He was saying, lowering himself to Rose's very improper position on the floor. Then his hands were on her back, her thighs, and before she knew what had happened, she found herself thrown over his shoulder.

"Hey! Puuut me down! This is indignified!" she cried, trying to make her argument sound as sober as she could.

"So is rolling about on the floor, blind drunk. Don't worry, you'll owe me one."

They were moving now, Rose was jostled with every footstep, wind catching where her skirt had ridden dangerously high. Blast Georgette for talking her into wearing it.

"Why won't you date Avery propersaly?" Rose found herself asking, before it had even been a conscious thought.

Rose was moved around a little as he adjusted her position, but to her surprise, he actually answered, "She's not my type." His tone was gruff, discouraging further questions. So Rose asked another one,

"What'sss your type?"

"Not Lauren."

Rose huffed, trying in vain to tug her skirt down without attracting Malfoy's attention,

"This issn't ladylike." She muttered under her breath, but Scorpius caught it,

"What _isn't_ ladylike, is getting completely rat-arsed at school, and then stumbling around and listening in on people's conversations."

"You shouldn't have been conversating so loudly!" Rose protested, trying to glare at Malfoy, but finding herself in the wrong position.

She felt his laugh as opposed to hearing it, a warm rumble against her lower belly.

"We're here." He said, unnecessarily, as Rose felt her foot hit the wooden door with a graceless _clunk_. She panicked only for second, imagining Malfoy waltzing into the party with her in this revealing position. She just hoped Malfoy hadn't noticed.

But her fears proved unnecessary as he set her on her feet, just outside the door, before opening it to admit the both of them.

He kept his hand firm on her elbow, another around her waist, ready to guide her rebelling body through the throngs. But they barely took three steps into the room before Rose's friends swarmed them,

"Jesus, we were wondering where you got to—"

"—dancing one minute, lost you the next—"

"—you were going hard on the booze, Tessie was convinced you were choking on your own vomit—"

They were all talking at once, in a relieved sort of way. Malfoy hadn't left, still keeping her upright. It took the group a minute to notice him, and when they did, an awkward silence fell. Well, as silent as they could be under the booming music.

"I found your lost lion cub." Malfoy told them, as though it wasn't obvious.

Al was the first to relax, "Thanks, Scor." He breathed, relieved and thankful, with none of the awkwardness the others were faced with. Rose felt herself being exchanged in hands, like a parcel, into Al's arms. Was that sexist, being passed off to another man? She would've protested at the indignity of it all, but the spinning room was too much, and she supposed it was mostly her own fault.

"She needs water, and bed." Malfoy told them seriously, far from the chuckling boy in the hall.

"She only had a few shots." Georgette snorted in humour, back to eye-rolling now that all was rightfully restored.

"Bloody lightweight." Malfoy scowled, but Rose was sure it didn't hold much of its usual malice.

"Well," Al started awkwardly, the only one in the group on good terms with the Slytherin, "I'll see you back in the dorm. I better help Rosie back to bed."

Al hadn't called her Rosie since they were small. It was a term of endearment common in the family, but only her father had continued to use it as Rose had grown. Truthfully, she had probably earned it, as the alcohol had reduced her to a childlike state.

Malfoy nodded, looking unsure about whether to bid the others goodnight, before departing in silence.

There was a pause—Rose could feel the girls sharing looks over her head—and Albus hoisted her up from where she'd been sliding.

"C'mon then, my lady." Al indicated with a grunt, as she shifted her weight in his arms. Rose couldn't help but immediately notice how different Malfoy's embrace felt to Albus'. Her cousin's arms were like they always were, comforting and brotherly. Whenever Rose had bad dreams—or vice versa—they snuggle together as children, protecting each other from the dark corners in the room and odd looking shadows. But Malfoy…

The group were heading for the doors, cutting through groups of people, some drunker than others. Rose knew she ought not to be looking, but Malfoy was nowhere in sight.

* * *

 **A/N: Admittedly, I'm not happy with my writing in the second half of the chapter. It needs an edit and a little bit of rewriting, but I'm just eager to get this chapter up so I can confirm that this fic isn't dead! I've just run out of pre-written stuff, and have been madly madly busy. I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and don't forget to review! Thanks for all the support, you're all the best!**


	13. Let The World Slip By

_Tuesday 20_ _th_ _December_

\- Two -

The hangover only lasted a day, but alcohol related embarrassment was a whole other ailment that Rose still found herself working through. It seemed like the more she thought over her interaction with Malfoy—her memory of which was spotty at best—she only remembered another thing to be embarrassed about. It became a physical sensation; a sort of curled in cringing that made Rose's face twist up, to the point where her friends were starting to give her sympathetic looks.

"I'm sure it wasn't _that_ bad, Rose." Tessie had said, with a comforting part on the arm.

"Oh well," Magda had shrugged, "You've got to get drunk and do something embarrassing at least once. That's how you learn your limits. We all do it."

"At least you didn't fuck him." Georgette had pointed out, which—oddly enough—made her feel the most relieved.

But the sensations of the weekend were _nothing_ on how she felt now, walking to detention. She'd been replaying the scene over and over in her head, different scenarios on facing him, dealing with whatever he'd say to her. The worst part was, she _knew_ , her levels of embarrassment far outweighed her actions—she'd heard enough stories of Magda's drunken escapades to know far worse could've happen. But logic was nothing on the rising wave of her anxiety, which had spent the whole weekend picking apart every word she'd said to him, ridiculing herself over things all things, implied and implicit, that had passed between them.

She hated herself for it, she hated herself for caring what he thought of her. It wasn't something she could pinpoint either—somewhere between corrosive sludge across her workbench, and her current walk to detention, her feelings had mutated into something she didn't recognizing. Gone was teeth-grinding; foot-stomping; fist flinging rage, replaced by something lighter than oxygen filling her lungs when they spoke, threatening to lift her from her feet and send her floating for the nearest ceiling. It was unidentifiable, because she refused to identify it, on a matter of principle.

But then the cold metal of the door handle was against her palm, and she twisted, the weight of the door all but swinging itself open.

He turned when she entered, and Rose could pinpoint when that new feeling came in—the funny, undiagnosed one. She felt an urge to drift suitably to his side, but the feeling was deflated a little by a wave of shame and embarrassment, keeping her feet grounded on the stone floor as she made her way across the room, to their usual workbench. Nothing was different, but that was a lie.

"Hello." She dipped a toe.

"Hey." He replied—the water was warm, "You alright after Friday?"

Rose tried not to let herself blush, but failed, "Yeah, uh, bit of a hangover but I was fine by Sunday."

"Ah, that's good."

Rose knew what to say next, because she'd only revised it in her mind a thousand times, but forcing the words out seemed to be a whole different thing, "Listen," because she'd found her mind on Selwyn, and all the ways it could've gone, "I wanted to thank you. For," the words were sticking in her throat, "for not, you know. Taking advantage. For taking me back to my friends. For making me feel safe. _Not_ that I'm saying you seem like the type to take advantage," she was babbling, "but I just know, with Selwyn and all, how vulnerable I was so I wanted to—"

"Don't."

She found herself temporarily stumped, surprised, because this wasn't a path she'd envisaged the conversation taking when she'd mapped it out in her mind, "What? I'm just trying to be polite, I wasn't—" she sounded hurt despite herself, dropping eye contact and then he was ducking his head a little, so she'd be forced to meet his eyes again,

"No, I phrased that wrong—Rose, look at me?—I was trying to say you _shouldn't_ have to thank me. You shouldn't be thanking me for doing a basic, decent thing. You shouldn't have to thank me for not taking advantage. You shouldn't have to thank me for not being a rapist, Rose, Merlin. Do you see what I mean? I don't need to be applauded for not being despicable." His voice was so soft, it barely filled her ears over the sounds of her own shallows breaths.

"I—yeah. I know what you mean." He was right, of course, not attacking her. Why was she so eager to find insult in anything he said?

There was a pause, and Rose watched him carefully, and he watched her in return, quiet but cautious, looking for something within her. She watched as his face slipped from a pensive place, to somewhere between morbid curiosity and mischievousness—a look that meant trouble. He was resting his fingers on their wooden table top, and the drummed them decisively before speaking,

"You know we're ahead on our work, right?"

She nodded, watching the roll of his shoulders, "It was inevitable, with two of us doing the work." His shoulders weren't just _that_ anymore, they belonged to Quidditch nights and a drunk fireman's carry.

"Slughorn left his Potions storage cupboard open." Scorpius nodded to the door, which sat on the left-hand side of Slughorn's desk, looking guilty as a door could. Almost always it was locked tightly, protecting its contents from teens chasing highs, or those with a dangerous combination of carelessness and curiosity.

"I'm sure those two, seemingly random comments will tie together, right?"

He winked—another dangerous face to pull, "Would you like to try something?"

"Slughorn might notice a bottle of 'something' going missing." She pointed out.

"Not if we skim a few drops off the top." He countered.

"If we get caught high, stumbling around?"

"Unlikely, with the potion I have in mind. And we'll only dose for the hour."

Rose bit her lip, so many things could go wrong, her anxiety would have a joy tallying them all up but she knew she shouldn't let it take the reins, it already controlled too much of her— "Alright."

Scorpius raised a silvery eyebrow, "I haven't even told you the potion I have in mind yet."

"Well," Rose shot him a smile, "I have decided to take this opportunity to trust you. Use it wisely."

His smirk burst into a grin, and it was a sight to behold, "Oh, _Roza_ , I intend to."

* * *

There was something shameless erotic about poking her tongue out for Malfoy, as he carefully measured one and a half drops of clear liquid onto it. It was tasteless, Rose could only tell she'd been dosed by the feeling of wetness on her tongue, slightly cooler than her own spit. He'd done his own moments before, his brow furrowed in concentration as he stood far too close for comfort. Then, slipping back into Slughorn's cupboard, he returned the bottle, ensuring the door was left in the same position they'd found it in.

Rose had never had Veritaserum before, everyone knew it was heavily restricted, but she could feel it settling in. Her tongue awaited a question—all her secrets bubbling dangerously close to the surface, right at the back of her throat, threatening to spill if she opened her mouth. It wasn't comfortable, like a mouthful of water, and Rose had to concentrate to keep her lips sealed shut, her tongue clamped between her teeth.

"It's taking effect." Scorpius said, the words so fast it sounded like they were falling out of his mouth, "What's your name?"

It didn't even let Rose consider her answer, the words were toneless, pulled from her as opposed to spoken, "Rose Tisa Weasley-Granger." Once she'd spoken there was a brief, temporary relief, as though holding the truth had been a physical strain. But then the pressure started to build again, and Rose found herself fidgeting to relieve it, shuffling on her stool, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

"Tisa? Where did that come from?"

"Tisamenus, son of Hermione and Orestes. They tried to feminize it. My mother reads a lot of books."

Scorpius laughed, "She does. I think it's pretty. Suits you." The last words were short, as though Scorpius was trying to end them before they'd been spoken.

"What's your name?" she tried, finding that questions didn't come out with the same urgency, she could control herself a little better—as questions were neither true or false, she supposed.

"Scorpius Regulus Malfoy." Scorpius' voice was dead too, but from the way he tightened infinitesimally, it was obvious the truth was being pulled from him too.

"Regulus? After Regulus Black?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it traditional for pureblood sons to carry their father's names as middle names?"

"Yes."

Rose could see that closed questions only got her yes' and no's, so she tried a more open ended question,

"Why didn't your father give you his name?"

Scorpius gritted his teeth, twisting a little in his seat, "He—he didn't want me to carry the burden of his name. He didn't believe he was worth having his name carried—he always said our last name was enough of an obstacle. My grandfather hates him for breaking tradition, it's still a bone of contention between the two of them."

"And Regulus Black was worth it?"

"He did what my father couldn't."

Rose hadn't realized how closed off Scorpius was, not until it had all come pouring out of him. She was caught in a strange trance of morbid curiosity, she hadn't noticed the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the line of tension in his jaw,

"I hate talking about my family." He blurted, and Rose stepped back from him, not even realizing she'd left her seat.

"I'm sorry. Shit, I'm really sorry—" Rose realized guiltily she'd unknowingly taken advantage of him, continuing to ask questions he didn't have the power to resist.

"No, it's ok." He cut her off, and he looked a little more relaxed now, wiping his forehead on the back of his sleeve, "I had no idea the compulsion would be so strong, it's like you're pulling the truth from me, it physically _hurts_ to try hold it back."

"Shit, I'm sorry—you can ask me whatever you want, I'm so sorry!" she found herself blurting, sounding just as ashamed as she wished she didn't feel.

"How about we go one for one?" he suggested, massaging the tension out of his jaw with his fingers, "I think it's my turn to ask."

Even though she'd eagerly taken the truth from him, she grew nervous at the idea of giving him the same power. He could, in this moment, pull any truth he wanted from her, even her darkest secrets, and she would be powerless to hold them in. For someone who was supposed to be guarded around Scorpius, this wasn't a well calculated move.

"Alright." She wasn't confident in his suggestion, but it seemed the Veritaserum was letting her keep that to herself, seeing as Scorpius hadn't asked a direct question.

"Ok…" Scorpius' sheepish expression got more sheepish, only because it was joined by a shifty smile, and a hand that almost ran through his hair before dropping again, "Do you find me attractive?"

 _The prat!_ She tried to fight it—she really did—she could feel every vein in her neck popping from effort, her teeth clamped on her tongue so hard it was practically bleeding,

"Yes!" she snapped finally, her teeth snapping together to finish the word, lest more information slip out. But it seemed she'd satisfied the potion, as the pressure eased a little, and she was left to ignore the dark red her face had flushed, and the triumphant noise Scorpius had made.

"Ok, but in what _ways_ do you find—"

"Stop!" Rose cut him off quickly, before he finished the question, and she was compelled to answer, "You had your question—and don't be vain!"

Scorpius was biting back a smile now, smug enough that Rose was angrily fighting off her own,

"Alright, what's your question then?"

Rose's question had been rolling around in the back of her brain for a while now, she'd just never expected the opportunity to receive an honest answer,

"Why did go after Selwyn for me?"

Scorpius frowned, "Because he'd a creep, obviously. There needs to be a punishment for people like that. Albus thought you'd go to McGonagall, but you didn't, so I knew I had to do something. And Albus is so lawful good he wouldn't even consider breaking school rules."

"Right." Why did she feel disappointed at his answer? "Your turn then."

She could tell by his mischievous expression exactly what he was going to ask, and she braced herself,

"What _exactly_ is it you find attractive about me?"

Rose grit her teeth, " _Fuck's sake_ —your baby hairs, when you stand in front of a light, they make a little halo around your heard— _prat_ —and your vowels and so posh and controlled that everything you say sounds like the evening news— _wanker_ —and you have really nice pianist hands and I like how big they are—also you're too bloody pretty for your own good, and you know it!" she finished angrily, hoping her forced cursing of him took the kindness out of the praises taken unwillingly from her. But judging the way he was beaming like a kid on Christmas, his ego had picked out the nice bits.

"Rose, I had no idea you felt that way!" he teased, showing his teeth in a smile he couldn't squash.

"Oh, fuck off, you narcissist."

"Easy, _Roza_ ," he tutted, "it's your turn."

Rose didn't have to think—he'd already presented her with her next question.

"Why exactly do you call me ' _Roza'_?" at least her blush was almost fading, shifting the attention off herself.

She was worried she'd crossed another line—Scorpius seemed to be struggled as she had, fighting the words that initially rose to the surface. But it only made her curious—what could he possibly have in response to such a benign question?

"I had a governess," he managed finally, "when I was very young. She had won a scholarship to Durmstrang and was very well-educated—she also spoke French fluently. It's traditional for Malfoy sons to be fluent in two or more languages, it's a status symbol. That's why my parents chose her, I suppose. But even though she'd earned top grades at Durmstrang, she originally grew up in a very rural community in Russia, which was extremely superstitious.

"She tucked me in on nights that my parents were attending functions, or were busy with work, and she'd tell me the most wonderful bedtime stories—many of which were folk tales and stories from the place she hailed from. One tale in particular stuck with me, and I remember asking her to repeat it time and time again, until I knew the story word for word.

"In essence, it was about a lake her community was famous for. It was vast, and deathly deep. In the middle stood a tiny little island, no more than a few feet across each way, completely uninhabited, bar a single tree. Though the village had originally been based around the resources the lake offered, no one dared swim in it, fish in it, or even go near it. Locals claimed that at dusk, when the first few stars were visible, and the lake had calmed to black, a spirit could be seen on the island, peeking out from behind the tree. The spirit—or ghost, or demon, whatever word described it—would call out to men on the shore, crying, begging for help.

"Young men were drawn in by her call, entranced by it, and would throw themselves into the freezing lake. Inevitably, they'd drown, simply unable to swim, or die later of hypothermia. One of the boys that was reluctantly rescued, to later die of the cold, had described the spirit as having pale white skin, flowing red hair—dark as blood—and lips like rose petals. He'd said the spirit was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"So the locals called the spirit _Roza_ , and the superstition and fear of the lake carried down, the tale passed from Elisabet to me."

His explanation had been hurried, encouraged along by the Veritaserum, and when he finished he took a gulping breath of air.

Rose mind raced as she attempted to process the information she'd been given, the answer so different to whatever she'd been expecting from him. However, one clear thought emerged,

"I can't believe you nicknamed me after a demon!" she cried in outrage, and Scorpius pulled a face,

"That's _seriously_ what you took from that whole thing?"

"Yes!"

"You're ridiculous."

Rose huffed, "Whatever." But her curiosity inspired her to ask another question, though she knew it wasn't her turn, "Was Elisabet your only governess?"

Scorpius shook his head, "No, when I was five, she was replaced by an educator, a stern old woman I didn't like as much. I haven't heard anything of Elisabet since then."

"Oh Scorpius, I'm so sorry—"

But he wasn't interested in her pity, "Hey, that wasn't your turn! I get two now!"

"Fine. Try not to ask anything _too_ narcissistic."

Scorpius thought for a moment, "Just to clear something up—did you intentionally hit me with the Quaffle in that Quidditch game?"

"No! I tried to tell you this—it was an accident, I was trying a feint, and you were in the wrong spot!"

There was a silence, Scorpius seemed to be mulling it over, before finally accepting her explanation, "Alright. Okay. Well, I guess, I'm sorry for sabotaging your potion."

There was a significant pause in the conversation; Rose was shocked she'd received and _apology_ from Scorpius bloody Malfoy, and Malfoy seemed to be pretty surprised by his own apology too.

"Sh-should I mark this day in history?" Rose asked, and Scorpius rolled his eyes so hard Rose was surprised they didn't get stuck,

"No." the Veritaserum forced him to answer, even though the question was sarcastic, "I've still got one more question."

"Get on with it then."

Scorpius _hmmed_ , "Are you a virgin?"

 _Seriously?_ , "Yes," the Veritaserum drew out, "you're wasting your questions—you could've asked Albus that." She added quickly, trying to brush over her reply.

"You really are?"

Did she have to keep repeating it? "Yes! Just because I don't lower my standards to awkward fumblings in broom closets with Neanderthal teenage boys, doesn't mean I should be ranked differently than anyone else." Rose snapped, "And just because you're the biggest slut in Hogwarts!"

Scorpius cleared his throat, "Actually, under the traditional definition, I'm also a virgin, so pot kettle black on that one."

 _That_ threw Rose for a loop, she fumbled for an answer, "But—you—you weren't having sex with Avery?"

Scorpius went pink, "Oral sex, yes," he cleared his throat again, looking uncomfortable, "sorry, that was the Veritaserum. But we haven't had classic proper 'sex', as it's defined."

"But, everyone thought you two were—"

"I think everyone assumed, didn't they?"

"But she called you out on it—"

"She was trying to use that assumption to her advantage, trying to force me into dating her. She'd been trying to get me to shag her for ages—there are traditions and expectations once you engage officially with someone. Lauren knew if we had proper sex, she'd pretty much secured a marriage vow from me."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed."

"But all the other girls? Flint, Parkinson?"

Scorpius blushed, "Just snogging. The rest of whatever happened is entirely gossip. And I can promise you, as of right now, that's the truth. And our hour is nearly up."

Rose leaned down, grabbing her bag from the floor, "Well. This has been illuminating."

Scorpius laughed, "If Slughorn leaves his cupboard open again, I'd do this again with you, _Roza_."

It was weird hearing the nickname again, post-revelation, as it had shades more meaning, "Well."

"Pleasure as always." Scorpius nodded, one strap of his bag over his shoulder. Usually they'd be packing down at this time, but there was none to do as they hadn't even set up.

"Right. Well." Rose could feel the Veritaserum wearing off—it felt like all her thoughts and secrets were sinking back to the private place where they usually skulked.

"See you next time." Scorpius was at the door, Rose was still a little shell-shocked by the revelations of their lesson that she hadn't even noticed him move, it was like he'd Apparated to the exit.

"Alright. Ok. Bye, then."

She was still standing at the desk, and he was out of the door, as though the surrealism of the lesson had had no impact on him what-so-ever. Maybe he was used to having honest revelation times with his mortal enemies? But, if it were a day for revelations, Rose wasn't sure she could call him that anymore.

* * *

 _Wednesday 21_ _st_ _December_

A little thrill had gone through Albus when he'd checked his calendar. A lucky match-up, he presumed, but a perfect coincidence for what he had in mind.

He arranged to meet Taki by owl—there was something special about writing a formal invitation out with quill ink, even if said invitation was sneaking out of the castle and breaking school rules.

The flutter of excitement that had been threatening all week finally erupted into full-blown butterflies the hour before they were due to meet, as Albus stood before the mirror in his dorm, looking at himself with a critical eye he only reserved for his worst days.

In an out of body experience, he'd considered that this was the face Taki had caught from across the greenhouse, the face he'd decided to ask on a 'date', the face he'd pressed a chaste kiss too. Maybe there was something appealing about it, even if Albus himself struggled to see it himself.

"Scorp?"

The boy in question was lying on the bed, and Albus was caught by a strange wave of déjà vu,

"Hmm?" Scorpius replied, lazily flicking through the copy of 'Keeping Tactics for Dummies', last Christmas' present from Al,

"Am I—I mean—do you think I'm… you know…?"

Scorpius' eyes lifted from the page, "What on earth are you talking about?"

Al knew it was a ridiculous question—when would anyone as pretty and arrogant as Malfoy suffer from anything close to insecurity?

"I just… I'm good-looking, aren't I? Or at least, average? I mean, my face will do, right? People don't cringe at it when I'm not looking?"

Scorpius looked mildly confused, as though he hadn't ever considered anything that was spilling from Al's mouth, "I have no idea what you mean, Albus. You know if I had to pick a guy, it'd be you. In fact, a few more curves, a dark room, and a few Firewhiskeys, and I'd happily—"

"Jesus, alright. Forget I asked." Albus snorted, turning back to the mirror. Merlin, why couldn't his hair _stay down_?!

Scorpius was sitting up now, apparently concerned enough to move from his lounging position, "Why, did the girl say something? Because I try to avoid violence, but I have other, nastier tactics for anyone who dares to—"

"No, no. Nobody said anything at all. I'm just… being silly I suppose. Don't worry about it." Al shrugged.

"Damn right you're being silly. You're a tall dark glass of handsome, and any girl is lucky to have you."

Albus was smiling despite himself, because behind Scorpius' terrible attempts at humour, he knew a genuine—though misguided—sentiment lay under it.

"Thanks, Scorp."

* * *

Albus was first to arrive, just himself and the tremble in his hands. The grounds were well-lit, the moon was almost full, bathing exposed places in a half-light that was reflected back in the snow. In the almost-summers they caught the corners of at Hogwarts, the grounds were alive; grasshoppers calling to one another, birds and the rustling of leaves creating a cacophony that carried across the grounds.

But now, everything had settled or left for winter—even the creatures of the forest quieting in their growls and whinnies. Albus was sure he could hear his own breath echoing back to him off the treeline, interrupted by nothing but an unnerving quiet.

At least, here, he would catch the footsteps of someone keen to catch him, and he could try to hide behind the greenhouses he waited against. The light of the moon lacked in the corners, only making their darkness more enveloping, ensuring his protection in case of emergency.

Al didn't have to wait long, he soon heard the tell-tale crunch of frozen grass blades underfoot. Al paused, cautious, until Taki's voice called,

"Albus? Are you there?" in his accent which couldn't be easily mimicked, the warmth in his tone strange in the cold.

"Here." Albus indicated, stepping from the corner he'd been lingering in, allowing the silvery light to signpost his position, "Did you bring the keys for Greenhouse Three?"

There was a deliberate jingle from Taki's pocket, his grin accompanied by a gust of frosty breath, swirling in the air between them. Al thought he could see it mixing with his own—a ghost of a kiss they hadn't shared.

"You've kept this very mysterious—admittedly I'm intrigued."

Al shrugged, though his heart leapt a little, "Just thought I'd return the favour. Key?"

Taki obligingly handed the object over, and Albus jiggled it open, letting them into the dirt-floored space. The greenhouses were one of the only places in the castle that weren't accessible with a simple _Alohomora_ , though Albus didn't trust his own Charm skills either way.

The heat inside was an uncomfortable contrast against outside, heavy and humid in ways that brought a sticky sweat out against Albus' upper lip, and both boys fought in a frenzy to discard their heavy winter cloaks and scarves, burning up under the weight of them.

Al was a little jealous, he'd rather be the one tearing of Taki's clothes, but the boy seemed to be managing fine on his own, and it seemed impolite to ask, so Albus instead focused on rapidly unknotting his scarf.

"Right then." Taki said, gathering the outerwear he'd shed, "What's next?"

"Through here." It felt nice to take charge, and Taki was following patiently, eager to see whatever Al had prepared. Al was a little annoyed, as Taki had set the bar so bloody high. How could he beat petting a mooncalf, feeling the baby calf's heartbeat? But he supposed, if Taki was someone he really wanted in his life, Taki would appreciate any gesture, no matter how small.

Al led them out of the student area, through to Neville's personal collection of rare plants. He'd been in here many times—it also seconded as Neville's office—and while it wasn't strictly out of bounds, he still felt a little dangerous entering it without Neville's explicit invitation.

"Down here." Albus encouraged, leading his willing follower right to the end of the gallery style room.

"So, uh," Albus checked his watch, "Now we wait." They'd been more efficient than Al had estimated for, arriving four minutes ahead of his extremely specific schedule.

Taki didn't seem bothered—he didn't seem bothered by anything—just giving Taki one of those smiles that made Albus melt in all the right ways,

"Have you thought anymore about what we talked about? What you'll do after school?"

And Albus had been, actually, when he wasn't thinking about Taki, or stressing about the well being of his extremely large brood,

"Honestly, I don't know if I'll get to 'after school' at all." Albus confessed, the first time he'd actually vocalized the idea since it had first struck him at a ridiculous hour, "I'm over this already—I dread every class that isn't Care of Magical Creatures, or Herbology. I put in double the effort in my classes, and I barely scrape by with passing grades. I doubt I'll get through this year, let alone make it to end of NEWT exams. There's a world of actual, _physical_ knowledge out there, but this whole school acts as though books are the be all and end all of information. I want to find it out myself! I want to see things! I want to get out of this country, and I want to fill my own books!"

His outburst had shocked even him—these were ideas that had been lurking in his head for years now, and Albus had refused to acknowledge them. But his interaction with the mooncalves had reinvigorated feelings that Albus had had for a long time, bringing them to the light. Because the night with the mooncalves had lit him up in ways that school hadn't for a long time.

It was as though Albus was having to trawl through his mind, breaking apart and sweeping away his deeply ingrained ideas of traditional 'life'. It wasn't his parents fault, it wasn't anybody's fault, but he'd been raised unintentionally to believe in a white-picket fantasy—the heterosexual, middle-class model—just because his family happened to fit what was 'normal'.  
He was supposed to meet a girl at Hogwarts, and graduate year seven with an acceptable number of NEWTs. Then they'd get married, he'd take a job at the Ministry, and they'd half two point five children and work happily until retirement. It wasn't until Albus had begun to notice he was different that he'd questioned this way of life, but he'd always figured there was something wrong with _him_.

"Why don't you leave?" Taki didn't seem surprised in the slightest at Albus' unprompted outburst, and he was still standing there, which was a positive sign,

"Uh, what?"

"Leave school. You're right—what's within these walls isn't the be all and end all, this isn't your only opportunity for education. Why stay if you hate it? Fulfilling the expectations of others is no way to live your life, because at the end of the day, you're the one that has to bear the brunt of your decisions."

It was silly—for all the angsting and moping Albus had done over his current situation, the thought had never occurred to him. He wasn't legally bound to finish school, and no one could keep him anywhere he didn't want to be.

"I'd never thought about it like that before."

Taki didn't have opportunity to respond however, as the bush Albus had stood them beside gave an ominous rustle.

"It's beginning." Albus indicated, "We have to stand very still—it won't bloom if it senses movement."

Both boys were frozen—Al wishing he'd positioned himself a little better. Taki's hand was only inches away, but was tragically unheld by Al's own. But any movement would ruin the surprise, so he summoned all his willpower to keep the gap between their fingertips woefully empty.

The first bud of the flower opened gently, unfurling silk-soft white petals, that seemed to twinkle as though they were lit from the inside. Albus so still he dared not breathe, restricting the lift and fall of his belly, just in case. But as though the first flower had communicated safety to the others, dozens of other buds opened, filling Neville's office with a glow that was impossible to look away from, as though each contained its own mini moon.

"This is a Lumenhiem plant." Taki breathed, the awe in his voice doing something indescribable to Al's heart, "I've never seen one before—let alone during their annual blooming. I didn't realize today was—"

"Winter solstice." Albus finished, "Pretty lucky timing."

"Albus, this is _incredible_." Taki's voice was what pulled Al's eyes from the plant, and as soon as his eyes landed on the other boy's face, he was glad he'd shifted them.

The light lit Taki's face into something that reduced Al's lung capacity to barely a square inch combined. The shadows at the corners of his smile only made it wider, something between surprise and appreciation that felt like silent praise.

"Taki?"

"Hmm?"

"I want to kiss you so much right now."

Taki managed to pull his eyes from the blooming too, "You do?"

Albus didn't feel apprehensive in that moment. Maybe it would catch up with him later, when he was remembering this moment for the thousandth time. But he could feel now was the distance between his lips and Taki's, how the space begged to be filled, how it felt wrong for the distance to even exist in the first place. And almost as soon as he'd thought it, it was gone, his mouth on Taki's with something on the more enthusiastic side of romance, his hands sliding into Taki's hair, behind his neck.

Albus knew that _this_ was it. It was not a spectator sport, it wasn't a role to be filled, it was something he was doing because he _wanted to_ , not because he wasn't to please the people around him—just like everything else seemed to be.

The boy smelt earthy and incredible, reminding Al of all his best outdoors lessons rolled into one. The magic on him was palpable, crackling against Al's skin like static electricity, charging Al into a frenzy as the kiss grew hotter, tongues sliding against one another, and Al wanted to pull off Taki's remaining clothes, just to touch his skin, as though he needed as much contact as necessary because his whole head with filled with nothing but a pleasant white noise—

It was Albus that pulled away, heady with the heat of the kiss in such a temperate place, in such risky circumstances.

"Christ." Albus laughed, the euphoria filling and spilling over the edges.

"What?" Taki grinned, straightening his shirt into something more presentable.

"I am _so_ gay."

Taki laughed at that, his lips a little flushed from the contact, hair a little mussed and Albus felt a strange prickle of pride in his chest at the sight.

* * *

The walk back from the greenhouses was much different to Al's lone walk there—Taki kept pulling Al to his side, planting kisses up neck, along his jaw, and across his temple. Albus realized he'd probably need to leap directly into a cold shower after this, if he had any chance of getting to sleep tonight. He hoped Scorpius would already be asleep—according to his watch, it was nearly one am—as the ridiculous smile he couldn't fight away would be decoded in a second.

Once again, they found themselves at the same back entrance to the castle where'd they'd lingered on their first outing, both hovering, not wishing to cut the evening off.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," Taki said after a considerable silence, "And our conversation tonight makes me think you'd consider it too."

Albus' curiosity was peaked at that, and Taki squeezed Al's hand tightly in his own,

"I'm leaving the country in June, to go travelling around the Equator—I'm writing a book on magical equatorial eco-systems around the world, and how the magic has affected animals and plants that have evolved there. I'm going to need someone to assist me, with collecting information, documenting it properly, editing my work. But I also want a travel buddy—someone to share my experiences with, someone who has as much appreciation for travel and the animals and plants we'll encounter. I know it's short notice, I know we've only known each other for a short amount of time. There'd be no expectations on you to fill a personal role you're not comfortable with, and you could leave if you didn't like it. I wouldn't want you to feel like you'd be obliged to stay or—Merlin, I'm rambling." Taki laughed, "Long story short, I'm inviting you. I want you to come with me."

Albus was rendered temporarily speechless, and briefly thoughtless too, as he scrambled to put the implications together, "You—you want me to travel the world with you? In six months?"

"It would be after your exams, obviously, and I wouldn't let the planning interrupt your school work. I'm not sure how long we'd be gone for, it would be at least a year. But my plan is to start in Gabon, cutting through equatorial countries in Africa—Congo, Uganda, Kenya—before going to the Maldives, Indonesia. Then Portkey to Ecuador, finish in Brazil. We wouldn't have to stick the equator though, I don't mind including mini trips to cities of interest."

"I—well—I—"

"You don't have to make a decision right now." Taki said quickly, "This is sudden; take all the time you need to think about it. Take a week, take a month. I don't want you to make this choice lightly. Again, we barely know each other, so there's no reason for you to rush into it."

"But if we barely know me, why are you inviting me? Surely there's a person out there who's actually _qualified_ , or has finished school at least. I'd be useless to you—"

"Albus," Taki squeezed his hand again, brushing his thumbs along Al's knuckles, "Don't undersell yourself. You're brilliant in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, you have a natural touch with living things. That's what I want. And as for knowing each other… I'm just listening to my gut on this one. And my gut instinct is you, Albus."

It was so tender, so sure and steady in the way that only Taki could be. Albus envied that, his surety, his rock-like confidence on everything. Maybe some world experience was what it required—Taki _had_ moved half-way around the world by himself—maybe that was what Albus needed. Some independence, away from family holidays with his parents, and the watchful eye of Hogwarts.

"Alright, I'll sleep on it." Albus agreed, pulling Taki closer for his goodnight kiss. If anything could've swayed his decision, it would've been Taki's lips, but Albus knew he needed to make this decision with no lovey chemicals in his system—a consult with Rose and Scorpius would be good. Lily would be good to talk to as well, she wasn't one for beating around the bush.

Taki breathed when they finally withdrew, his hand finding the door handle, "Night, Albus."

"Goodnight, Taki."

* * *

 **A/N: Writer's block really knocked me for a loop on this one. And I know I don't usually do music recommendations, but I wrote this chapter to Barricade by Yumi Zouma, Trouble by Cage the Elephant, and Best of Friends by Palma Violets. All quite different but (in my opinion) all excellent songs. A final note: Albus Potter is a cheesy romantic, pass it on.**


	14. Consume the Thing That Feeds Their Fury

_Thursday 22_ _nd_ _December_

\- One -

Rose and Hugo hadn't received a letter from their parents since the 29th of November—and Rose hadn't even realized. It was unusual for their parents—their mother was a religious twice a week writer, even if she was busy with work. The worst part of it all, was that Rose hadn't even noticed. Hugo had approached her about it, taking time out of his busy moping schedule to ask,

"Have you gotten any letters from Mum and Dad?"

Rose had trawled through her drawers, realizing the last letter they'd received from their parents had been in regard to her detention with Scorpius, which felt like years ago.

She'd fired a quick letter to her parents, checking-in, but mostly trying to prompt a reply.

At least it gave her something to worry over. The Veritaserum session with Scorpius had been like whiplash—too much all at once. It had been a brief, perfectly contained bout of chaos, and Rose's had needed two hours alone afterwards, so she could attempt to recuperate.

Then, combing through with care, she'd plucked at the tiny threads of truth she'd missed the first time around, trying to arrange them into something like order. It was an odd metaphor for the boy himself, she was discovering slowly, too overwhelming to process at once, but so interesting upon closer inspection.

There were three things that emerged, Rose listed them mentally;

1\. Scorpius' father wished he'd defected against Voldemort

2\. Scorpius, in conflict with unofficial school lore, was a virgin

3\. The spirit he'd named in her likeness, was beautiful enough to inspire suicide

Whatever they were playing at, Rose could see the danger in it—or rather, the danger in being caught up with someone like Scorpius. Hatred was easier than whatever they were playing at now.

She wasn't supposed to crave his sole attention—these hours were meant to be punishment, not an event she looked forward to in a very roundabout way. Rose hadn't recognized this until she'd done some maths, realizing today was their last detention together. Only when faced with the reality of losing their sessions, was Rose confronted with the true extent of how important their time together had become.

She recognized, again somehow, that pleasure had crept in, either growing from, or totally overwhelming her previous hatred of the detentions with Scorpius. Much like falling asleep—an overused but apt simile—she'd been unable to pinpoint the change, much like slipping from consciousness to unconsciousness.

There, naturally, was still a degree of betrayal she guilted herself over—in the end, was this it? She'd shown such a united front against Malfoy for six years, and eight hours was all it had taken? But trying to hate him now was so much harder, like his newly revealed humanity made it ruder somehow.

But her mind was the only part of her trying to keep a united front—seeing as Rose's stomach fluttered in a not so subtle way as she entered the detention that evening.

"Evening." She nodded, training her eyes to the floor.

"Hello." He replied, eyes trained on her, "Ready to finish the potion?"

"Finally, yes."

They prepared the last step of the potion, aware of how coordinated they'd become, how easily they predicted the other's movements. Their avoidance had grown from hatred, but now was testament to how comfortable they were with one another—something they'd never admit out loud. Rose could still feel energy crackling in the spaces between them however, only more aware of the distance she worked hard to maintain between them. Now it was the danger of attraction that she was wary of—a different kind of explosion that could occur between them (another reminder of how much had changed).

"I suppose," Scorpius remarked lightly, after a quarter of an hour of silence, "that we ought to reflect on the lessons we've learned. I'm sure that McGonagall was hoping we'd get at least one thing from this."

It was small-talk, but Rose felt a flutter of anticipation at being addressed.  
But really, what _had_ she learned? That hate and lust were more intertwined than she'd previously thought? That the willpower she'd previously prided herself on was as malleable as dough? That Scorpius was the prettiest bloody thing she'd ever seen?

"Alright, then. You can go first." Rose turned to him, "What have you, Scorpius Malfoy, learned from all this?"

"Me?" Scorpius straightened, a teasingly lofty expression on his face, "These sessions have changed my life." He proclaimed, "I was on a downward spiral, you see. The sex, the drugs, the rock and roll lifestyle. I was bound for prison. But being forced into eight hours with you, has set me on the straight and narrow. I've re-evaluated—my chastity belt is on its way, I'm sure—"

"Ha. Ha." Rose rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but smile, "That's a crock of shit."

"You think?" Scorpius drawled, but his smile matched hers, "How about you, then? Don't tell me you've learned nothing in this whole shitfest."

Rose thought for a moment, "No, I think I have learned something, actually."

"And that is, pray tell?"

If Rose couldn't sense the danger from her own racing pulse, then their lowered tones had to be a sign. But she'd never been good at staying out of trouble, far too curious for her own good, and she felt a smirk light her face, "Well, _I_ learned Slytherin's legendary 'sex god' isn't quite up to par as rumour would have us believe." She leaned against the desk, her heart skipping a little as the risky comment hung in the air,

Scorpius turned to her, his mouth a circle of offence, even if humour warmed his eyes, "Hey now, that's an unfair assumption."

"You told me you were a virgin—under Veritaserum, may I add." She played along, liking the way his eyes had narrowed now, darkening with the implication, his gaze so focussed wholly on her, Rose couldn't help feeling as though she was about to be leapt upon.

Scorpius' smirk joined hers, and Rose warmed under it, and the suggestive direction their conversation was heading,

"Doesn't mean I don't know anything about pleasing my partners." Scorpius proclaimed, a little smug. And if Rose wasn't mistaken, he shifted a touch closer to her, his body facing hers now, hip resting against the wooden table top. The warm buzz in her belly growing to something that refused to be ignored.

"Oh really?" she didn't want to back down—seeing the silent challenge in Scorpius' eyes, the strange game of chicken they seemed to be playing with each other was reaching dangerous levels, but the hum of Rose's veins was almost lava in heat, with a magnetism that picked up on something in Scorpius,

"Are you asking for a demonstration?" he hummed, his voice so low it was a growl. He only looked more predatory with his pupils blown out—the ring of silver around the edge swallowed by black—and Rose's gut instinct warned her she was playing with fire, but desire screamed over it, needing Scorpius' hands on every inch of her.

Rose wanted to say these feelings were new, or entirely foreign, but that was a lie. Ever since their night on the Quidditch pitch, ever since comments from her friends, ever since Scorpius had emerged gracefully from the awkward chrysalis of puberty, Rose had known he was gorgeous. But never had his brand of gorgeousness lit her up like this, never had this been an option.

But Scorpius was close now, his muscles tightly coiled—because even in his moments of weakness, he still had a composure and restraint Rose envied, holding something back that even Rose couldn't draw from him.

Rose, on the other hand, could feel the weakness of her own knees, as though Scorpius' gaze alone had liquified the joints in her body, reducing her to the burning in her belly and the tickle of her lips, mere miles from Scorpius'.

"Maybe." She whispered, so close now the volume wasn't needed, her eyes only for Scorpius' smirk, pink against his alabaster, and how she'd close the gap between them, struggling to remember why she'd insisted on maintaining it before.

It was as though Scorpius sensed her intention recognizing what she wanted, and something tightened infinitesimally, and Rose paused for a moment—did he not want her? Had she misread the signs?—before he was standing between her legs, gripping the back of her thighs, hoisting her up onto the bench. The sudden lightness of her body—the disconnect from her feet in the floor—did nothing to help the strange trance Rose found herself in, the absence of her usually endless internal string of thoughts replaced by buzzing.

Instead she was driven by the tug in her gut, her internal tides drawn and pulled by the moon that seemed to light Scorpius—all the silver he was. Her thighs were parted by his place between them, one of his hands drawing over the skin of her knee, shifting distance upwards based on the sounds Rose couldn't stop herself making. His other hand had found its way to her hair, twisting and fisting in the locks, tugging them to bare her neck. She felt as though she didn't exist as an individual in that moment, every nerve in her body condensed to where Scorpius touched her.

His lips were ghosting her neck, as though placing them on her would break the spell, as his fingers slipped under the hem of her skirt, pausing for a moment. Rose barely managed to consent—' _please'_ —before his fingers were skimming higher, slipping aside the cotton barrier he met with impatience, as though this contact was as necessary to him as it was to her. Her mind was all white noise, all logic and reasonable thought muted for the moment.

It was foreign—not because of pain, or uncomfortableness—but she'd only ever been the master of her own sensation before, a routine she rehearsed in her spare time, or when her dormmates fell asleep before her. But now Scorpius was controlling her, listening for the movements that made her breath hitch, or drew a whimper from her. He learnt at an enviable pace, soon finetuning the movements of his fingers to suit her, based on how she responded, a curling motion deep inside, paired with the pressure of the heel of his palm grinding against her clit.

Rose felt as though her body had melted, reforming itself around the movement of his hand, like he was holding her together with that alone. It was strange though, Scorpius had buried his head in the crook of her neck—still not having kissed her—as though she was supporting him. It was like he was inhaling her, but not daring to put his lips to her skin, as though she was made out of dust.

It was only when Rose felt the approach of a familiar crest—the only recognizable part of the whole encounter—that she allowed herself a moment of weakness. Both her hands were white-knuckled to the desk, her only grip on reality, but one flew to Scorpius' hair, freeing it from the leather band. She allowed herself, only for a delirious moment, the action she'd been resisting for the past month. Scorpius' hair was so soft through her fingers, it made them feel calloused and wizened—just something else to be embarrassed about later.

But all of Rose was reduced down to animal instinct—desire, need and action—and she wouldn't chastise herself now.

She bit down on a cry, muffling it against Malfoy, as he coaxed her through her spasms and shudders, gentle words of encouragement and praise even as his hand guided her mercilessly through.

Rose felt exactly when rough, angry, desire gave way and softened around the edges, and this was around when Scorpius' fingers stilled against her. She huffed a laugh—had she been expecting this when she'd woken this morning? She hadn't even allowed such an improbable idea to enter her fantasies, let alone her mental schedule.

Rose had needed Scorpius' hardness, his roughness, his desire. But now she craved what he'd refused to indulge her with, a simple kiss. It had all happened backwards—wasn't that supposed to be the first step? Instead he'd given her an orgasm on a desk. Why didn't it feel more wrong?

But she was a happy cocktail of post-climax endorphins, all smiley and sleepy now, and couldn't see the harm.

The hand she had in his hair slipped to his chin, and Rose pulled his head from the crook of her neck. His cheek was so soft it tickled her sensitive skin as he moved, and she shifted, leaning forward to press her lips to his—expecting something sweet and tender, finally _finally_ reaching the real climax—because in all this brewing sexual tension, and awkward transition from enemies to something less bitter, wasn't this what it all came to? The simplest, most innocent kind of contact? Something far more intimate than exploring fingers, more profound than an explosion of desire and lust.

Rose's mind had felt foggy before, but finally her thoughts were clear, earnest, and not clouded with her previous insistence on hatred, on maintaining what she and Scorpius had always had. She wasn't afraid of rejection, because she didn't doubt now, that this was what Scorpius wanted too.

The kiss never came. He stumbled backward, his hand leaving her with a sound that would later make her cringe.

"Scorpius?" she asked, confused, as to why he had placed metres between them with such urgency.

He didn't need to answer—as when he finally met her eyes—the horror in his expression was all she needed.

Scorpius didn't pick up his bag. He didn't look back. He spun on his heel, all but sprinting for the door. The slam of it happened to coincide with the exact moment Rose's body flooded with shame.

* * *

 _Friday 23_ _rd_ _December_

Albus wasn't sure why Oscar—his ferret—was deciding to disobey him, of all the days he could've chosen.

"You've been in this cage a million times." Albus huffed in exasperation, "What's the bloody problem?"

His day hadn't been going well, but Oscar's obstinacy was the icing on the Christmas cake. Albus was supposed to be at Hogsmeade station in five minutes, and he was likely to miss the carriages if he didn't haul ass.

Scorpius hadn't waited for him; he'd been in one of his 'moods' where he'd refuse to talk about what was bothering him, but also refused to stop sulking about it.

Albus respected his best friend, but often he could be so bloody childish, especially in the face of adversity. He rarely shared his issues with Albus; either ignoring them, or not confessing what had troubled him until months had passed. It was a mixture of upbringing and genetics, taking the whole 'stiff upper lip' thing to new heights.

It frustrated Albus because he felt like it put up walls in their friendship—to him a friend was a person who you turned to when you were struggling, and needed support. But Albus respected that Scorpius hadn't been raised in Al's world—the loud, expressive, emotionally embracing Potter/Weasley brood. Scorpius' family and upbringing had a few more demons to deal with, and he'd faced the brunt of that as an only child.

But Albus had his cheats—often Scorp was a little more loose-lipped after a Firewhiskey or two, or when the two lay in the dark in their dorm, and Scorp couldn't see Al's face. Seeing as neither of those tricks were possible currently, Al would just have to tolerate a scowling, door-slamming Scorpius for the train ride home. He wasn't looking forward to it, to say the least, but he could always spend time with Rose if he got too fed up.

Albus ran out of time to coax Oscar into his cage, instead letting the ferret hide in his robe sleeve, before throwing his rucksack—filled with things he wouldn't go without over the break—and all but ran for the carriages before the castle.

* * *

Al tried to ignore the glaring silence of he and Scorpius' compartment, trying to focus on the magical travel guide he'd borrowed from the library for Christmas break. Since the discussion with Taki, he'd spent every spare moment learning more about the destinations Taki had mapped out—their history, must see sights, their wizarding hubs, and (most importantly) their ecology.

The more Al found himself learning, the more excited he became about the trip—visions of himself and Taki snuggled in the corner of magical taverns, charting their work for the day and sharing a few drinks. The fantasy was still up in the air, however, as Al hadn't made an official decision on whether or not he was joining Taki on his travels.

He had—as Taki had advised—slept on it, but as he'd lay in bed (not sleeping) he'd realized how big of a deal it really was.

Primarily, he had to have a discussion with his parents. Al had been thinking around the idea of coming out of the closet for a while, but whenever he set dates for himself to do it, he always managed to wriggle out of it. But if he told them he was planning to travel the world with a boy, the nature of their relationship would be discussed, and that wasn't something Albus was willing to lie about.

It wasn't like the Potter family was homophobic—at _all_ —but Albus still had his own insecurities surrounding how they would react, that it would change their view of him even slightly. And once it was out there, it wasn't something he could undo, or take back.

Then there was the matter of money; a trip like this wouldn't be cheap. Though Al knew his parents had a bit of money put away for each of the Potter kids upon leaving high school (for house deposits, buying furniture, tertiary training and the like) he didn't know if they'd be willing to give it to him for something as frivolous as travel, even if it related to his future in a roundabout way.

But Albus figured the biggest tripping point for his parents would be the timing of the trip. It would mean that Albus wouldn't be completing his last year of NEWTs with everyone else. He could always come back and finish, but that wasn't guaranteed. Albus could imagine what his parents would say, but he'd already planned his ultimate trump card—pointing out that his father hadn't finished school either.

By the time Al flew out, he would be of age (so technically, could leave without his parents' permission), but he wanted them to be happy with his decision. Leaving the country without their approval would be the worst-case scenario.

So, as the train sped towards London, the twisting and clenching of Al's stomach increased, and Scorpius wasn't even trying to distract him. Not that, of course, Scorpius knew how he was feeling, or what he was anxious over, as he'd decided to tell his parents first.

"You know," Albus said lightly, attempting to engage Scorpius in conversation, "if you want to visit over the holidays, you're welcome to the New Year's Party at the Burrow. Everyone will be there—"

"I think we have plans." Scorpius grunted, cutting Al's sentence short. Albus would've pulled him up on his bad manners if Al weren't feeling so hysterical—they were only an hour from London, and his parents who were waiting on the platform for he and Lily.

Speaking of the devil, and momentarily distracting Al from his panic, the door to their compartment slammed open. Scorpius seemed to jump at the flash of red hair, face twisting, before he recognized Lily.

"I think Hugo's having a panic attack in the hallway." Lily stated, raising an eyebrow in Scorpius' direction. His sister really wasn't one for beating around the bush, "Go fix him, Scorp."

That seemed to pull Scorpius from his mood, he jumped to his feet.

But they didn't have to move, as a figure quickly shoved himself and Lily fully into the carriage, slamming the door forcefully behind him.

"I can't do it." Hugo panted. His face was a flushed red, his fringe sticking to his forehead in strands, "Jesus, I can't do it."

"Hey, easy. Take a deep breath, Hugo." Scorpius said quickly. Albus had always found it funny how Scorpius had taken on a big brother role with Hugo, taking the boy under his wing. Al almost felt sad that Scorp didn't have any siblings of his own; he'd be excellent, "Tell us what happened, and just take your time."

Hugo took a stuttering breath, which looked so funny on his tiny frame, "I—I went to invite Neema to our New Year's Party at the Burrow—like you said, Scorp—but I got to her carriage door, and I just couldn't—I couldn't—"

"It's alright Hugo. It's fine. Take a breath." Scorpius patted Hugo's shoulder, as though he was trying to calm a nervous animal.

"There were just so many girls! Sitting in the carriage! Giggling! And then…" Hugo cringed, recoiling from the memory.

"And then?" Albus prompted, the only one in the carriage still sitting down.

"Well when I walked past," Lily offered, "he was just standing in the window of the door, staring at them. They were kind of confused, because he wasn't moving, and they were laughing—"

"I just froze!" Hugo cried, "They all stopped talking, waiting for me to come in! And then I couldn't move, and they started whispering! And then because I was frozen, I couldn't walk away either, so they probably thought I'm some sort of pervy creep—"

"No offence, Hugo, but it was pretty creepy." Lily pointed out.

"Lily…" Al sighed, "Not helping…"

"What? I'm just saying what I saw!" Lily protested, shooting Al an affronted look.

"I'm sure it wasn't _that_ bad, Hugo," Scorpius assured him, "these things always seem worse when we're experiencing them, but in reality, it was probably only a few seconds, and not nearly as bad as you think it was."

"Oh my God," Hugo groaned, slumping onto a seat, "I'm going to die alone."

"That's not true," Scorpius was quick to assure, sitting next to Hugo, "remember, girls are people too. Nothing to be afraid of."

But Hugo was too deep in the well of self-pity now, and he slumped against the cushioned back of the bench, "I didn't even manage to give her the Christmas present I made."

Al looked to Scorp, apparently he'd known, "You got her something?" Al was surprised at the forethought—he hadn't had such a thing at fifteen, "What is it?"

Hugo fumbled in the pocket of his robes, producing a fairly pretty little box, cream with golden decoration. It was a tad smaller than Hugo's clenched fist, and Al expected a pair of little earrings, or a pendant of some kind. But when Hugo opened the box, the hinge at the back snapped open, and a surprisingly strong song rang from it. It took Al a second to recognize the sound of a piano, playing a melody he hadn't heard before.

"Scorp helped me with the charm," Hugo said in a resigned voice, "But I wrote and played the song. Took me two months to finish it." He snapped the box close, and the music abruptly ended.

Albus fumbled for words, but Lily spoke first, "Wow, Hugh, that's actually…like, really thoughtful!"

Hugo huffed, slumping further down in his seat, so his chin was on his chest, "Yeah, but it's all pointless now. I don't even have the courage to give it to Neema, let alone take her out on a date."

Scorp opened his mouth, looking as though he was about to say something reassuring, but Lily cut in a with a huff,

"I don't even know why you're interested in Neema. She's a right bitch, everyone else in our year knows it. I walked past the Ravenclaw table the other day, and heard her complaining about 'the short Gryffindor' following her around. Don't bother—go after someone who actually has a soul."

Hugo's mouth was popping open and shut, he looked utterly rattled, "But—but—"

"You can't defend her," Lily shrugged, "it was completely obvious you were just after her for her looks. And let's be honest, Hugh, she's completely out of your league."

Hugo had sat up in shock, his mouth continuing to pop like a koi fish, as though Lily's bluntness was something new.

Al winced, "Merlin, Lily, could you have some tact for once?"

"What?" Lily was on the defensive, "It's the truth! You two were just going to keep boosting his ego, letting him delude himself? Let's be real, it would've been a harder blow to deal with further down the line. If you look at it that way, I'm actually the nicest person in here." She turned to Hugo, "Come on Hugh. Let's get back to our carriage—the trolley lady will be going through soon. You can have a pumpkin pasty on me."

Lily grabbed Hugo's hand, pulling the shell-shocked boy into the corridor, poking her tongue out at Albus through the door window.

There was a moment's silence after the pair left, and Scorpius finally sighed, "God, your sister is bloody something, isn't she?"

Albus nodded, "She's always been like that." Before his eyes narrowed, "Decided to talk now, have we?"

At least Scorpius had the grace to look a little sheepish, "Yeah…uh… sorry for being a bit of a grumpy prick."

Albus gave a little nonchalant shrug, "I figured it was your business. Unless you want to talk—?"

"Nope." Scorpius said firmly, "I'm fine. I just…" he sighed, "this is something I need to figure out myself."

Albus sure as hell could sympathise with that, "Yeah, I get you man." He conceded, "Just give me a bit of warning, yeah? At least so I know to avoid you for a few days."

"Yeah, fair enough." Scorpius agreed, "Do you want to get into our normal clothes?"

"Yup, good idea." Albus agreed, and both boys stood to pull down their luggage. At least if everything turned to shit this Christmas, he and Scorpius wouldn't spend the holiday on bad terms.

* * *

 **A/N: You're all fantastic and your reviews are amazing. I'd send you all thank-you cards if I knew your addresses and could afford the postage. Thank you!**


	15. Christmas

Rose's parents had been quite surprised to see the state of their children as they'd both disembarked the Hogwarts Express.

Rose knew she looked dreadful—she'd hadn't slept a wink on Thursday night, spending the wee hours twisted up in shame, and heartbreak all neatly contained in a silencing charm so her roommates wouldn't hear.

She'd tried to keep up the conversation in the carriage, but it was hard to talk past the weird lump in her chest. The tiny, bitter voice in her mind reminded her she was just being a burden—her friends weren't interested in her silly little problems, which she'd probably blown out of proportion anyway. Rose didn't always want to be the person that needed help, to be the one that always needed the people around her to patch her up again. So she'd kept quiet, trying to ward off the looks of concern her friends keep shooting her.

Funnily enough, Hugo looked just as worn down—sweaty in a way that didn't make sense in the December weather. Ron and Hermione hugged them both tightly, but their mother still sent them a 'is everything alright? We'll talk about it later' look that Rose recognized. Then they were welcoming Tessie, 'so glad you could join us again, Tessie!', ignoring the glaringly obvious fact that Tessie's own family hadn't welcomed her home for Christmas.

It was nice to see her parents again though, especially after hearing not hide or hair of them for a period that was long for their family.

Rose had made a passing comment, in the car on the way home, asking whether her parents had been busy, and if they'd received her letter. Ron and Hermione had shared a look, and Rose figured she wasn't the only one who had something to share.

* * *

 _Saturday 24_ _th_ _December_

Ron stood over the frying pan, flipping the sausages with a flick of his wand,

"There's only one more sausage. First in, first served."

Her father's Christmas Eve breakfast fry up was an odd family tradition—but Ron maintained that lining one's stomach with grease before the Yule piss-up was tantamount to avoiding a hangover. Not that Rose had ever been old enough to get pissed at Christmas—her seventeenth birthday was still four and a half long months away—but Rose was fairly certain it was bullshit. Ron usually spent Boxing Day avoiding bright lights and grumbling about George being a bad influence. But he always managed to be pecker up again for the New Year's Party at the Burrow, where he would repeat his mistakes.

Her father's movements were predictable, he was a creature of habit. Her mother, on the other hand, usually kept her head in the festive season. There was only one Christmas Day Rose could recall her mother being drunk, and that was nine years ago. Rose had run inside the Burrow, from the garden where the children had been playing in the dark, and found her mother at the dining table with Nana Molly and Aunt Ginny. Hermione had been very pink-cheeked, and the three were giggling scandalously. Her mother had leaned forward, a little wobbly in her chair,

"You're damn right Molly, all men want to do is stick their—"

Rose hadn't heard the end of her mother's sentence, as Uncle Harry had clapped his hands over Rose's ears, and guided her back outside to light some sparklers.

There was no evidence of that person now; Hermione flicking through some paperwork and sipping from a champagne glass filled with orange juice.

"Last sausage? Going once, going twice…" Ron called from the kitchen. Hugo made a sound, through a mouthful of hash brown, and Ron called, "and the last sausage goes to the man with tomato sauce on his chin."

Tessie was partaking in mimosas with Ron, as her seventeenth had passed back in October. Rose had snuck a cheeky one, and went for a cheeky second,

"Do you want a top up, Mum?" Rose asked, presenting the half-empty champagne bottle to her mother.

Or, that's what Rose thought she said. But judging by the way her mother stiffened in her chair, eyes darting up from her paperwork, Rose could've said she was going to rob Gringotts.

Even her father had stopped humming in the kitchen, and Rose watch her parents meet eyes across the room, a silent conversation happening between them. Her parents had these often, and nine times out of ten it progressed into the actual bickering her parents were so well practiced at.

"When we discussed this earlier," Hermione said, in a light sing-song voice that meant danger, "you said you wanted to handle this."

"But Rose asked you the question, so would you like to handle it?" Ron replied, watching Hermione cautiously.

"Why, do you not want to?" Hermione asked, and Ron shook his head,

"No, I'm happy to, but I don't want to derail the conversation—"

"Alright, so I'm doing it, am I?"

"I just said I'm happy to do it, but—"

The scraping of a chair on the tile distracted the two of them from their not-quite row, and Tessie cleared her throat, "I can leave, if you'd like—"

Hermione waved her hand airly, "Don't be silly, Tessie, you're practically family. Sit down."

Ron look to Hermione, "You're doing it?"

Hermione sighed, "Yes, Ronald, I'll do it." Rose's gut was churning at this point, a thousand possibilities running through her mind. If neither of her parents wanted to share the news, that had to mean it was bad, right?

Even Hugo's attention was caught, the last sausage that was speared on his fork halfway to his mouth, hovered there.

Hermione flashed a weak, nervous smile at the other three occupants of the dining table, resting her hands in her lap,

"Well, your father and I have a rather exciting announcement." Hermione paused, looking to Ron. He'd abandoned the frying pan, making his way over to his wife, standing behind her chair and giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

'Exciting' was a good word, right? People didn't get 'excited' over getting divorced, did they? Her parents bickered, sure, but they didn't actually _fight_. And even if they did—on the very rare occasion—Rose usually caught them snuggling up and kissing on the couch afterwards, when they thought Rose was asleep.

"Don't look so anxious, Rosie," her father laughed, "it's nothing bad."

"It's good news, I promise." Hermione nodded, before taking a breath, "Well… we're pregnant."

The table went quiet, until Ron chuckled, "I'm pretty sure _you're_ the pregnant one," Ron remarked, his voice quiet as he let the rest of the table absorb the news.

"Last I checked," Hermione replied, in a teasing tone, "you had something to do with the matter."

Rose found her eyes flicking to her mother's stomach, and Hermione caught her gaze, "It's only early days—twelve weeks, actually. That's why we haven't been good with writing, it's been very busy. We just thought it would be better to tell you in person."

"But," Hugo interrupted, "how does that work? I thought that when you hit," his voice lowered, as though he was cursing, " _menopause_ you couldn't have kids anymore."

Hermione pulled a face like she was offended, but she was laughing, "Merlin, Hugo, I'm only forty-three. I'm not menopausal yet. And suffice to say, the pregnancy was certainly a, uh, _surprise_." Ron and Hermione shared a look, and Rose didn't want to even think about that aspect of it, "And there will have to be some adjustments, but now that the shock has worn off, we're utterly delighted."

Tessie was the first to react appropriately, leaping out of her chair, "Congratulations! This is wonderful news!" Pulling a surprised Hermione into a tight hug, before rounding on Rose, "Oh my God, you're going to have a baby sibling! I just love babies, they're so squishy and adorable!"

As though Tessie's excitement was infectious, Rose felt her face light up, and she got up to hug her parents, "Do you know what it is yet?"

"We want it to be a surprise." Her father said as they pulled out of a hug.

"Twelve weeks," Rose counted forward in her mind, "that means the baby is due in July?"

Hermione nodded, "The 24th."

Even Hugo had left his seat now, hugging Hermione and Ron with an awkward smile on his face, like someone was forcing him to show affection at wand point.

"Ooh, a Leo. That'll be interesting! A fire sign, like you, Rose!" Tessie was grinning, expressing enough excitement for everyone in the room.

Rose was still in a state of shock, but she could feel it melting a little as realization settled, and dots began to connect, "Wait, what about your campaign to be Minister for Magic? Are you going to drop out?"

Hermione shook her head, a relieved looking grin on her face. Rose dimly noted that they must have been nervous about the reaction they'd receive, but Rose couldn't imagine feeling anything but excited.

"We've decided I'll stay at home." Ron filled in, "The Auror office isn't too busy these days, and your mother makes more anyway. She's been angling for this position for the last decade—it wouldn't make sense for her to leave now."

"I'll have a few months maternity leave," Hermione explained, "But as soon as the baby is three months, I'll be back into it."

"Oh!" Rose exclaimed as more dots connected, "Hugo and I will be home for the summer—we'll help!"

"I am _not_ changing a nappy." Hugo protested immediately, much to the amusement of everyone else in the room.

* * *

Christmas Eve was always the calm before the storm. The 25th was always a flurry of travel, discarded wrapping paper, cheek pinches and food. The Potters liked to spend the day before lounging around the house, snacking lightly and catching up with one another before the chaos truly began.

It grew dark just before dinner, and Al was curled in front of the fire, curled up with a Wizarding edition of _Lonely Planet: Indonesia_.

He was skimming through the basic phrases section, which included—'can you help me, sir? I appear to be pooping frogs'—when the front door was slammed open, hitting the wall with the sound that made Albus jump—Oscar leapt off his shoulder in protest.

The sudden arrival wasn't surprising, however, when James Potter's voice rung loud from the front entrance, "DON'T WORRY MUM, THE FAVOURITE CHILD IS HOME."

Their parents barraged James with questions over dinner: how was he finding Egypt? How was Bill? Had he been staying out of trouble? Had he met any nice girls?

James' answers, through mouthfuls of mashed potato, had respectively been 'good, good, yes' while the last story had prompted a tale about a heavy night of drinking, which had ended with James picking up a girl at the bar who'd turned out to be a _jinn_ , who'd tried to eat his soul.

"She sounds nicer than the other girls you've brought home." Lily snorted into her dinner, and even their parents tried to disguise a laugh at that one.

But Albus' badly contained snort of derision had caught James' attention, who elbowed his brother rather roughly in the ribs.

"Have you tricked any girls into dating you yet, Al?"

As always, Al disguised an eye roll at the choice of gender that so many people assumed he was interested in. But Al returned the ribbing, easily engaging in the antagonistic relationship he'd always had with his brother, flicking a pea at him, "Not yet—I was hoping you'd get me some tips."

James shrugged, "No trickery here, Al. Just waves of pure, undiluted sexual charisma seeping from every pore. The women love it."

Al snorted, "I think most people call that 'body odour'."

"And _I_ think you're just jealous that I sucked all the sex appeal out of the womb." James fired back, waggling both his eyebrows and fork in a lecturing sort of way.

"Hey!" Lily jumped in, "I'm perfectly desirable, thank you!"

Though their parents had been watching the exchange in silent amusement, Harry jumped in,

"Lily, at your age, I hope the only 'desire' you're referring to is getting good grades in school."

James chortled, "Are you kidding Dad? At fifteen I was—" but he paused when he caught Ginny's raised eyebrow from across the table, "in bed every night at nine pm, sleeping soundly." He finished carefully, turning his attention back to his peas.

"You're the worst liar, James." Albus pointed out, but James was already moving on, back to their original topic,

"All that aside," he said quickly, avoiding his mother's eye, "we still haven't gotten to the bottom of your girl problems, Al. It's been plaguing me—I can hardly sleep for worrying. All my tousling and turning annoys my bed partners, as well—"

"Oi." Harry said in a clear warning, nodding in Lily's direction as a reminder to keep it clean.

Lily's protest—'God, Dad, I know what _sex_ is!'—went largely ignored, and Al could feel himself getting irritated with James' dogging of the topic. But Al knew his obvious frustration wouldn't stop James—instead encouraging his brother on his quest to shit stir.

"Leave off, James." Al gruffed, playing with the puddle of gravy in his mash.

"But why, when we could have a heartfelt chat and get to the root of it all?"

"You're such a prat."

"Maybe," James hypothesized, as though he'd finally cracked it, "it's jealously! It must be hard living under my shadow, watching the women flock to me."

"I couldn't care less what you do with women, James." Al's irritation had bloomed into anger, his brother being the only person on earth who could provoke such an un-Albus like emotion. James did this often, crossing the line of gentle ribbing into something more cutting and personal.

"Why, you swing the other way or something?" James jibed, the rest of the family oblivious as they chatted about something else over their plates.

Anything to get James off his back—Al's clenched jaw let the wrong words escape, the topic that had only been on his mind every day since his date with Taki,

"Yeah, I bloody do, James. Happy?"

The whole table went quiet—but at least James finally shut up.

This wasn't how Albus had pictured it. It was his own fault really—he'd felt the point where James' usual antagonism had started to annoy him, and Albus hadn't removed himself from the situation. Usually James could push him much further, but he'd found a point of sensitivity and provoked it in a way only James could. Because coming out had been on Al's mind only constantly, especially with the added pressure of declaring his plans to leave school early, it had been sitting right on the surface, like an angry boil. James was a perceptive bastard, and he'd gleefully exploited something he could see was irritating Al. Even though he'd done it without realizing the root of it all, he'd done it all the same.

And now it was out there, and Al couldn't take it back.

"For real?" James' voice wasn't jovial anymore, just surprised, but Al found himself searching for something critical in it. Because the relief and fear of disapproval were building into something like tears, threatening in the space behind his eyes.

"Yep." Albus confirmed, and everyone at the table was watching him carefully.

After a silence that seemed designed to torture Al—who was trying very hard not to cry into his mash—Ginny spoke,

"Al, honey," her voice was soft, and she reached across the table to squeeze his hand, "this changes nothing. We love you no matter what, and we'll support you no matter what."

"Of course," Harry agreed, "your mother is right. And, I mean, we had our suspicions. It's not like you were bringing home girl after girl like James—"

James looked mock-offended, "Is Dad insinuating I'm a slut?"

"Well, you sure aren't playing hard to get." Ginny told him, and James' mouth was a circle of indignation.

Lily, who hadn't said a single word since Al's confession, suddenly rose from her seat. She looked oddly smug, and that was an expression that meant trouble on Lily Potter.

"If I may be excused, I have a few letters to owl." She declared, inching away from the table

"Why the urgency, Lily?" Ginny asked, not fooled by the look of false innocence on her daughter's face, as the latter inched her way around the table.

Lily tried to smile sweetly, but instead it looked a little evil, "I'm suddenly owed a great deal of money."

She'd was behind Al's chair now, and leant down to whisper carefully in his ear, "Also, you might want to be a little more careful with where you stash your _Wicked Wizard_ magazines."

* * *

 _Sunday 25_ _th_ _December_

The thing that loomed over Rose had no regard for the holiday season, hanging stubbornly around her neck all through Sunday.

As was tradition, they spent the Christmas breakfast with Hermione's parents, exchanging presents under their perfectly manicured tree. Rose got a whole bag of sugar-free sweeties and a charm bracelet from her mother's parents, and she smiled gratefully and picked at her croissant and strawberries. Tessie filled the gap in conversation, talking in detail about she and Rose's classes, and Rose's various successes on the Quidditch pitch. Her friend could sense she wasn't up to it, and Rose was grateful for Tessie's efforts, making a mental note to thank her later.

From there, they'd headed to the Burrow, quickly enveloped in the noise and chaos that was the Weasley clan. It was easier for Rose to withdraw here, sit in a corner and let conversation and movement fly past her, nursing the one glass of Firewhiskey she'd been rationed.

All she'd done since 'the incident'—as she'd now mentally labelled it—was run through what had gone wrong. She broke apart and analysed each second, trying to see past the pleasure in her own memory, to any point where she'd crossed a line with Scorpius. His expression had been nothing but violation, shock, and sheer, honest terror. Had he never consented? Had she broken through a boundary he'd tried to put up? It was the only explanation for the way he'd reacted. But the worst part, was the arousal she still felt when remembering it. There was an undeniable flush of pleasure deep in her belly every time she recalled how his hand had felt twisted in her hair, his desperate breath on her neck. But now that was all locked up in shame, and guilt, and disgust with herself.

It was like the white noise of her thoughts had been filled by the 'incident'—every moment she wasn't occupied, every moment her train of thought drifted from the track she'd forced it onto, she was back on the desk again, whining and keening under Scorpius' hands.

Usually her distractions worked—and the pregnancy was an excellent one, as well as the entire Christmas season. But the happiness she felt was a smothered flame—there, but dying under the thick, choking blanket of negative emotion. Rose wasn't the type who usually had much control over her emotions, she barely had a lid over them, but now the roiling mess inside her had swollen, dwarfing her entirely. It threw her to and fro, rag-dolling her completely, as she was lost to the tsunami of grief for something she'd never had. She didn't have a chance.

It was past dinner now—she'd helped with the dishes, and tried to clean as much as she could. When she was moving, Rose had control of her body at least. But Nana Weasley had shushed her away, clearing the mess with a flick of her wand. Now she was curled up on a window seat, empty glass tucked between her hands, trying to measure her breaths before she was tugged under again, and pulled away by the currents.

George was dancing around the lounge to the Wireless; his children old enough now that they didn't require constant supervision.

"Glass empty, there, Rosie?" he shook the bottle of Firewhiskey he was holding. Rose's parents weren't in the room—Tessie and Al were off chatting with Teddy Lupin in the garden—so Rose held up her glass.

But George just winked, setting the bottle down beside Rose on the floor, "Have fun, Rosie." Before he was drifting from the room, probably moving to the dining room for the buffet-style dessert.

The living room was clear when Rose filled her glass to the rim, taking a gulp that made her eyes water. But the burning grounded her back in her body, and made her feel as though she had a modicum of control. Even the wave of nausea that hit her stomach after she'd finished the glass was reassuring, reminding Rose of her solidness, how she existed in the physical—she wasn't just memories of the Potions classroom, she wasn't just the person who Scorpius had held.

Rose finished three glasses before her sharpest emotions began to dull, the tide finally letting out. It was still threatening at the back of her mind, but she was fuzzy enough to ignore it. Now her only driving force was sleep, emotionally exhausted by the trial her mind seemed to be holding.

She stumbled up the staircase, wanting to snuggle up in the bed that smelt like her father, as though she was still young enough to be protected from the simpler evils of the world.

Rose didn't remember making the walk, but she remembered finally staggering to the bed, crawling under covers that were freshly laundered and didn't smell like much. She'd heard so much of her parents and their escapades, that she almost felt like she was friends with the younger versions of them. The Chudley Canons paraphernalia was still familiar though—something her father and a young Ron still had in common.

It took seconds for her to sleep—she was only woken by a brief spell of nausea, but she leant over the bed and it was gone, leaving her body in a process that felt simple. Then she fell back asleep—for seconds it seemed, before sounds got too close, and she was reluctantly pulled to consciousness again.

"Rose! There you—oh, honey!" it was her mother's voice, Rose managed to crack her eyes open, seeing Hermione eyeing the vomit on the floor with nothing but pity. Her mother waved her wand, the smell that Rose hadn't noticed until now disappeared, and Hermione sat on the bed, helping Rose into a sitting position.

She wanted her mother to be angry, or disgusted, something that would match how dreadful Rose was beginning to feel.

But she was softness and sympathy when she said, "Rosie… are you ok?"

It was kindness that broke Rose—her voice cracked,

"No," tears spilled, boundless, Rose couldn't even fight to hide them, and her voice was a broken wail, "No, I'm not."

Her mother didn't ask for an explanation, she didn't chide or probe or hold Rose away. The tears had barely reached Rose's chin before she was pulled into a tight hug, enveloped by the perfume Hermione saved for special occasions, and the faint smell of her father.

The family took the Floo home after that—Hermione told the family Rose wasn't feeling very well, guiding her through the Burrow so she wasn't caught swaying. Tessie looked immediately guilty when she saw the state Rose was in, squeezing Rose's hand and whispering an apology.

But they made it home in peace—Ron and Hermione helped Rose into bed, preparing a bucket by her bed, and giving her a pain potion for the next morning.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm so sorry it has been a while since my last update! It was my birthday two days ago, so I have been busy with merry-making, and not writing very much. But I'm back on the wagon now, I swear! Thank you again for all your reviews!**


	16. New Year's

_Monday 26_ _th_ _December_

Rose's sleep was rough and disturbed, broken by dry retching and stumbling into the kitchen for water. The breaks were almost welcome though, reprieve from the vivid fever dreams that came in indiscernible flashes, nothing more than hands fisted in her hair, and a mouth slipping across the surface of her bare skin.

Rose woke to silence—which was unnerving for only a moment, before she remembered where she was. Usually, Tessie's snoring filled the dorm when Rose woke, as well as the coming and goings of her roommates if they ever managed to rise before her.

Her pillow was damp—from sweat or tears, she wasn't sure—but she fought her way out from her sheets, which were stuck and twisted around her like a bind.

Tessie's mattress beside her bed was unmade but empty, which explained the louder than usual silence.

Rose shifted, going to stand, but the sudden movement caused a jolt of nausea in her stomach, so she resigned herself to sitting again. She knew she ought to feel terrible—the memories of last night were coming thick and fast—but the taste of bile in her mouth and aching headache were enough to calm her anxiety into resigned guilt.

She could smell something frying—more of Ron's greasy breakfast food—but it triggered another sickly roil of Rose's stomach, so she breathed through her mouth instead.

There was a quiet click, and Rose's door slowly opened, as though someone were attempting to creep into the room,

"I'm awake." Rose called, her voice throaty, "Come in."

Tessie's blue hair peeked around the door the second before her face, "Oh, sweet. I was just coming to get some clothes." Tessie nodded at her rucksack—trying far too hard to keep her eyes down and expression neutral.

"It's fine, go ahead." Rose gestured her forward, and Tessie tiptoed as though she'd never been in the room before, not looking at Rose, as though she was acknowledging an unspoken plead for privacy.

Rose took a breath, feeling as though she had to pretend to be together now that someone was in the room. She tried to run a hand through her hair, but her fingers caught on knots she hadn't brushed out yet, so she let it drop to her lap.

She'd never felt so isolated before—even if she knew the walls between herself and Tessie were self made. But she was so fucking ashamed, of her actions, of what had happened, and how quickly she'd given in to Malfoy. Even the thought of telling Tessie made her belly twist up with embarrassment, which wasn't a good sensation when combined with the nausea from her hangover.

Tessie had paused on her walk to her rucksack, tiptoeing as though she weren't supposed to be there, "Is there, uh, anything you want to talk about?"

Rose's hands twisted in her sheets of lieu of anything else to do, and she ran her thumbs over the crinkles she'd made, the texture distracting her from the pitying look Tessie gave her,

"No, I'm fine. Thanks though."

Tessie didn't look convinced, but she grabbed her clothes and left without another word.

* * *

 _Saturday 31_ _st_ _December 2022_

While Christmas at the Weasley's was a pretty exclusive family gathering, the annual New Year's Party was a free for all. Most people were expected to bring at least one guest, and Molly made enough nibbles to feed at least a thousand.

Most years Albus bought Scorpius, but even after they'd made up on the train, his friend quickly declined the invitation to this year's party—telling an obvious lie about going away with his parents. Al tried not to dwell, but the rejection stung a little.  
Most New Year's Scorp would sneak the too-alcoholic eggnog, and Al would stick to pumpkin juice, as he hadn't drunk since the incident with Rose and Ron's port (his first and decidedly last experience with alcohol). Most times Rose and Tessie would join them, starting many games of Truth or Drink in the darker corners of the Burrow where the adults wouldn't spot them. Even if Al only did shots of pumpkin juice or the kid friendly eggnog, he still liked the thrill of pretending to be grown up as another year rolled around.

But Al knew he'd feel a little lost without his usual plus one, not eager to sulk around with Rose and Tessie for the night, feeling sorry for himself.

Maybe that's why he'd scrambled for a spare piece of parchment the day before the party, scribbling out words as quickly as he could, one for each thump of his heart, before his nerves caused the quill to still. He'd closed his eyes as he'd sent the family owl out the window, trying to resist the urge to snatch the invitation back, and fling it directly into the fire.

Albus had probably let it too late anyway. It took a fast owl about ten hours to get to Hogwarts—Taki probably wouldn't receive it in time. Taki probably had something planned. Taki probably didn't want to come. Taki had probably Portkeyed home for the festive season. Merlin.

This was all his parents' fault anyway. Since Al had fallen out of the closet, Ginny had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that he could bring 'anyone' he wanted to the party— _anyone_ at all. 'Anyone' in this context meant a boyfriend, or other romantically inclined companion. Harry had been less subtle and far more curious—asking if Al had a boyfriend (currently or ever), or how you could tell who was gay and who wasn't (as though there were some secret hand signal or something). Albus had found his polite interest endearing, until Harry had asked him if he was dating Scorpius. The absurdity of the idea made Albus accidentally inhale his muesli, and Lily had given him a few firm wallops on the back until the bits of oats and dried fruits evacuated his windpipe.

But mostly it was James' fault, as his brother had moved onto mocking Al for the lack of girls in his life, to the lack of boys. It had ranged from 'well, you can't blame me for your lack of success, eh?' to 'now that your dating pool is even slimmer, you're royally buggered right? Whoops, no pun intended.'

Lily seemed the most nonplussed about Al's coming-out, but then, she said she'd already known. Al knew his family were doing their best, and they did love him, but his parents especially had some old-fashioned stereotypes they were still getting out of their systems. The funniest had been from his father however, when he'd muttered under his breath, 'I _did_ wonder why Dean and Seamus kept sharing a bed.'

Al was digging a clean shirt out of his wardrobe on the eve of the party, when his mother called up the staircase, her voice a few octaves higher than usual, with an inflection that was never good,

"Albus! I think someone is here for you!"

Al nearly fell down the stairs as he ran down them, a combination of frantically buttoning his shirt and taking them two at a time. But then he realized he wouldn't be much use with a broken neck, so he forced himself to slow down and breathe deeply.

By the time Al rounded the corner to the lounge, Taki was already out of the Floo, dusted lightly with soot and looking so gorgeous and floppy haired that Al's heart did a strange little leap at the sight of him.

"Ah, Mum, Dad," Al nodded, as his parents were already in the room, too-polite smiles plastered over their surprise, "this is Taki. My, uh," Al stuttered, "my—"

Taki was shaking Ginny's hand with the confident ease he managed effortlessly, as though he hadn't just crawled out of a Floo into an unfamiliar house.

"Nice to meet you." He grinned, before moving to shake a surprised Harry's hand.

Al _may_ have neglected to inform his parents about inviting Taki to the party, too nervous to admit it to even himself.

But as Taki introduced himself to Harry, Ginny raised her eyebrows, shooting Al an impressed look when Taki couldn't see,

" _He's cute_!" Ginny mouthed, and Al waved her off, but his cheeks heated.

Then Taki was stepping towards him—a little hesitation this time—and Al knew Taki was trying to judge the situation, not sure if Al was out to his parents yet.

Al wasn't how to signal everything was ok, and that he didn't want Taki faking anything for his sake.

So he tried not to overthink it as he leant up, planting a tender peck at the centre of Taki's lips.

It was clear the other boy was surprised, but he was responsive enough, ending the kiss before it became uncomfortable. But it was clear as Al pulled away, that Taki looked very relieved.

"I'm sorry I didn't send an owl back," Taki explained, "I didn't think my reply would make it back before the party, so I got your Floo address from the school and hoped you'd be here."

"Don't worry," Al nodded, his eyes flitting between Taki and the expectant way in which his parents were watching, "that was my fault for inviting you so late. I hope you didn't have any other plans."

"No, not at all," Taki reassured him, "just the Hogwarts fireworks and a big dinner."

"So, Taki, you're an exchange student? Which year are you in?" Harry pulled their attention back to the wider group, and Al could tell his Dad was playing the role of 'protective Dad'—or trying to, at least.

Taki's eyes flicked to Al, testing the waters, and Al realized it was the first time he'd seen Taki looked nervous. It looked odd on him, as though he was nothing but his unfailing unfazed self, "I'm actually out of high school. I'm doing an apprenticeship with Professor Longbottom."

"Oh!" Ginny's eyes lit in recognition, "Neville said in his last letter he had an apprentice, remember, honey?" she nudged Harry.

But Harry's brow was creasing, "So, how old are you?"

"I just turned nineteen."

His father's brow crease was a full blown frown now, and Al's internal sirens were going off, "You're three years older than Al?"

"More like two years," Al cut in, "I'm practically seventeen."

"Not until the end of February." Harry said, as though Al had forgotten his own birthday.

" _Harry_ …" Ginny hissed in a warning whisper, and Al found his face flushing again.

"Would you like to see my room?" Al turned to Taki, whose face was a mask of well-mannered panic.

"Yes! Yep!" Taki agreed a little too eagerly, and Al all but dragged him away.

Harry looked after the two of them as though he wanted to make a comment about leaving the door open, but Ginny gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs. Al caught the edges of their bickering as he led Taki up the stairs, cringing for Taki's sake,

"—trying to look out for him!"

"Last I checked, Harry James Potter, I'm a full year younger than you!"

"One year is quite different to three!"

"You're just panicking because your youngest son is growing up. You better get used to it—it'll be Lily next!"

"Don't be ridiculous." His father huffed.

Al made sure to close the bedroom door behind them, a little passive-aggression for his father to fret over.

* * *

But it seemed Ginny's talking to had calmed Harry a little, as he was perfectly pleasant as they all made their way to the Burrow. It was an hour in—after sixty minutes of introducing Taki to everyone, as his 'uh, friend' and many raised eyebrows in response—before he finally pulled the boy aside.

"I'm sorry about before. My Dad only has the best intentions, I swear, but he can be a little blunt sometimes—"

Taki sighed, "I thought it might come up. We should've discussed it sooner."

Albus paused, "It doesn't make any difference to me. I don't think there's any real difference between us, you've just finished school and I haven't. It's only three years—"

"It is a big difference at this age, though." Taki frowned, "I should've thought about it before—"

"If you're breaking up with me on New Year's, Taki, I will… I'll… I'll hit you!" Albus said furiously, terrified at the resignation in Taki's voice, at the way his face had scrunched up as though he was about to do something unpleasant.

"No, no!" Taki said quickly, looking panicked, "That's not what I'm getting at—I just think I should talk to your parents. I just forget that there's the gap between us because you're so mature, Al, far more than I was at your age. Don't worry," Taki assured, "I'll chat with your Dad. Smooth things out."

"I don't know—"

But confident Taki was back in place, and Al couldn't help feeling reassured when Taki insisted, "Don't worry, Al. It'll be fine. Promise."

* * *

Rose gingerly turned down a third offer for a drink as she and Tessie made their way to the snacks table. The week between Christmas and New Year's had passed at a painful pace—her whole family and Tessie watching Rose as though she was a volatile cauldron primed to blow.

She knew she owed them an explanation, but the furthest Rose had gotten was a gritted out 'I'm sorry' to her parents, who'd looked only sympathetic in return.

Usually they were such an open family, which was way Rose was (normally) incapable of keeping things to herself, and prone to oversharing. Hermione expressed herself passionately, and she and Ron had never kept their frustrations away from their children. Even Hugo poured his everything into his music, and slammed doors whenever the piano couldn't adequately communicate his anger.

Because of the Weasley-Granger's openness, Rose had always run directly to Hermione's arms with even the littlest of problems. It seemed they were surprised by her silence more than anything else, uncharacteristic as it was. Yet the thought of even beginning to talk about what had happened between her and Scorpius—telling her _parents_ especially—made Rose feel ill. In her most objective of minds, she recognized her parents were probably physically intimate ( _yuck)_ , but she preferred to pretend they had no idea about anything to do with sex, and would prefer not to hear that she'd practically had it—or some sub-genre of it—on the desk of the Potions classroom _they'd_ also studied in at Hogwarts.

Once she and Tessie had loaded their arms with treats, Tessie nodded to the back doors of the Burrow, "Let's go outside." She suggested around a mouthful of mince pie, and Rose had no reason to disagree.

On their way to the garden, they passed Albus in the lounge, talking in hushed tones to a ridiculously attractive guy—it took Rose a second to realize that it must be Taki, who Rose was yet to actually meet—but Albus met her gaze and gave her a look that meant 'we'll talk later'. Rose just gave him a nod of confirmation, before slipping out the mismatched barn door that led to the generous Weasley back garden.

Like every year, a marquee had been erected, and a generous warming charm filled the whole area, the ice and snow on the grass melting away. Often, later in the night when drunkenness ensued, the lights were switched to multi-coloured, flashing and lighting up an impromptu dancefloor. But for now, it was only seven pm, and the youngest of the Weasley clan were still running around on sugar highs, enjoying the last hour or two before their parents would attempt to settle them to bed.

Rose was past this age now—but traditionally New Year's was a big sleepover at the Burrow for the kids, where Nana Molly would conjure up sleeping bags and stick all the grandkids in different rooms across the house. She never dared to separate Al and Rose, who'd usually bunked in Ron's room with Louis Weasley, James, Freddie and Molly—the 'middle ground', as they all sat roughly in the middle of the grandchildren age range.

When Hogwarts started, Scorpius and Tessie were thrown in the mix too, always welcomed as part of the rough and tumble gang the six of the Weasley/Potters formed, rampaging around the property and daring each other to perform increasingly dangerous stunts. Freddie usually lead the cluster—slightly older by a few months—and with all the mischievousness of the late Weasley son he'd been named for.

It made Rose feel sweetly nostalgic, remembering the gang they'd formed in their youth. They'd all drifted a little now—finding their own friend groups at Hogwarts, a little afraid to be associated with the loud and proud mass that was the Weasleys. They all still met up at these sorts of functions though, making small talk and 'remember whens'. Rose knew now though that their camaraderie was one that only came with childhood, and there was no point trying to rekindle something she'd always recall fondly.

She and Tessie made the rounds—'yes, study was good; no, they didn't know what they were doing after Hogwarts'—but Rose was genuinely glad when they happened upon Teddy and Victoire, the latter with her hands clamped protectively around her swollen belly.

Victoire complained about swollen ankles and water retention, but Rose told her she was glowing—just like always. Rose could only hope to look half as pretty on her best day as Victoire looked while heavily pregnant, but she gracefully complimented Victoire all the same.

"Teddy was hoping for a New Year's baby—you get in the Prophet if you have the first baby of the year." Victoire laughed, "But I don't think that's going to happen—he's quite firmly in there."

Teddy, whose hair was a kaleidoscope of firework colours for the celebration, winked, "We've still got a few hours, we'll see yet."

Rose and Tessie shuffled along when Nana Molly came to cluck around Victoire, talking about birthing techniques and 'I told you, didn't I, that I practically birthed the twins myself? Arthur was at work—see—and he was _supposed_ to pick up Floo powder, but—" and Teddy shot Rose a long-suffering look from the corner of his eye.

Rose was in such good spirits after her chat with Victoire and Teddy, that it took a second for her heart to sink when Tessie suggested in a careful tone,

"Would you like to go for a proper walk?" she nodded out past the marquee, into the snowy darkness where they were unlikely to be seen or heard.

Credit to Tessie, she had been very patient over the last week. Not once had she bugged or pestered Rose about what was weighing her down, or why she moped about the house like a depressed dementor. It wasn't that Rose enjoyed freaking her family out—she'd just spent the week encompassed by the weight of her own thoughts, attempting to untangle what had caused them.

"Alright." Rose agreed, not enjoying the resignation in her tone. She didn't want to relive her experience again, even verbally, but she owed Tessie this.

They walked in silence past the warming charm, both curling in a little bit as the winter winds finally caught them, slicing through their coats and turning free strands of hair into whips. Rose fought to contain hers into a sticking charm as the two stopped, right at the edges of the light from the marquee.

Rose wasn't sure what to say, and Tessie wasn't filling the silence with anything, just waiting for Rose to put words to the funk she'd found herself in. The scene of oddly profound—here the stood on the edges, physically marking the frame of mind Rose had found herself in the past week.

"First of all," Rose began, "I'm sorry for making a fuss. I know I was moping—but I couldn't help it, and I—"

"You don't need to _apologise_ ," Tessie cut in quickly, sounding surprised, "for not being okay, Rose. We—me, your parents, your family—recognise you're processing some shit right now, and you don't need to apologise for that."

Rose nodded, "Yeah, you're right. I just—" where did she start? "I don't know. I did stuff with Scorpius."

It wasn't as eloquent as she'd been hoping for—she wanted to explain how _off_ the whole thing had been, how he'd looked at her in utter disgust, and how much she'd grown to care about him against her will. But she'd gone and blurted out the crux of the problem in the simplest terms, and made it sound so much smaller outside of her head.

Tessie sucked in a breath, "You aren't _pregnant_ , are you?"

Rose spluttered, "No, no! Things didn't go _that_ far. There were just some hands—'a' hand—but…"

"Oh my God," Tessie sighed, sounding weirdly relieved, "you were so anxious, I thought you had to be pregnant. Or owe money to an underground goblin mafia who were threatening to break your legs or something."

Rose laughed breathlessly, appreciating that Tessie could still bring humour into it, even when Rose's roiling stomach felt like anything but, "No, nothing like that. But, God, it feels like that."

Tessie gave Rose a quizzical look, and Rose decided she'd start from the beginning. Then, slowly, she broke everything down—the volatile detentions spent together, the blooming comfort in one another's company. Rose even confessed to the little things—how he'd drugged Selwyn in revenge, the Veritaserum, the late night not-quite Quidditch game on the pitch. She was realizing how much she'd kept to herself as she finally let it all air, and judging by the sounds Tessie made, most of it was entirely unexpected. Even as she told the story, she could see how each interaction had built, growing violently into something far beyond Rose's control. While the scene on the desk was still out of the blue, Rose could see know what had sparked it, and that it hadn't been borne from nothing.

"But, the way he looked at me afterwards—he was horrified. I keep playing it over in my head, terrified I crossed some kind of boundary with him."

"Well," Tessie mused, "did he express any verbal or physical reluctance from what you can remember?"

Rose had been over it so many times she didn't have to think, "No, he didn't, I mean, he was the one initiating and I was the one following along."

"Was he responding enthusiastically?"

"Yeah, he did. Right up until the kiss, at least. He was the driving force behind the whole thing."

Tessie shrugged, "Honestly, Rose, I think you're overthinking it. He was probably just surprised—it sounds like it was all pretty abrupt."

Rose chewed away at her lip in thought, "I know, it was abrupt. And I feel like even more of an idiot, because I gave in so quickly! Is that all it takes? Eight hours? Scorpius has always been such a twat to me, and all it takes is for him not to be _as_ intolerable for eight hours and suddenly I cave? I didn't even try and resist!"

Tessie went to say something at that, but Rose noticed when her friend bit down on her words, brows furrowing in the centre as she swallowed whatever she'd been about to say.

"What?" Rose pressed, "What were you going to say?"

Tessie sighed, brows still furrowed, "You're not going to like it."

"That doesn't matter." Rose insisted, "we always tell each other the truth—you know that."

"I—" Tessie fiddled with her nose ring, "I don't think you actually ever hated Scorpius."

"That's—" Rose was so flummoxed she was lost for words—whatever she'd been expected Tessie to say, it wasn't that, "that's ridiculous. You've seen the issues we've had, I've always despised—"

"Maybe I should've phrased that better." Tessie sighed, now fiddling with one of the several pieces of jewellery in her left ear, flicking away the blue strands that got in her way with impatience, "I just think you and Scorpius have always had more than just hatred. You've always gravitated towards one another—seeking each other out, even under the pretence of winding one another up. I'm not trying to justify Malfoy's behaviour—" Tessie amended quickly, as Rose tried to protest, "because he has been downright awful at times. But there's always been something _there_ , something that pulled you two together, and made your interactions so…intense. I just think that intensity has previously manifested itself as hatred, and now it has the opportunity to take a new shape."

Rose was completely dumbfounded, but judging by the anxious look of Tessie's face, she was awaiting an answer, "Are you trying to say that Scorpius and I would've been inevitable either way?"

Tessie shrugged, "I'd say spending so much time together probably sped it up but… yeah. It's always been Scorpius for you—you've never been so actively engaged with a boy as you are with him. There was never anyone else, really. Was there?"

Rose wanted to prove her wrong—defend her rivalry with Malfoy to the bitter end. But she scoured her mind for any other connection as intense with any other boy, flipping through six years of memories, but all she could draw up was _Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius_ , and the realization made her cheeks heat, "Well, no, but—"

"I'm not saying I'm right," Tessie emphasized, "Just an observation from the outside. I just think you're lying to yourself with that whole 'only eight hours' rhetoric, that's all."

It wasn't a comfortable feeling—having a whole belief washed away like a poorly structured sandcastle, and Rose's mind was happy to provide evidence with all the bits in between the horribleness—like the thrill arguing over points in class, the way Rose always asked Albus about Scorpius and then pretended not to care, or seeing him curled up beside her in the Burrow, on New Year's parties just like these and feeling a little rewarded at the sight.

"Oh my God," Rose groaned, pressing her face into her hands, "oh my God. I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot. We were all just waiting."

Rose groaned again, "In my defence, I still do absolutely loathe him, and I think I always have. But, I admit," she conceded, "I don't think that was ever _it_."

Tessie shrugged, "You probably did—and do—hate him. But hate isn't a mutually exclusive emotion."

Rose wanted to fold in on herself, she was cringing severely, but settled for rubbing the heels of her palms into her eye sockets until she saw stars. Tessie watched on very patiently, until Rose let out a long sigh, finally straightening,

"It has _always_ been him."

Tessie laughed with kindness, "He's your Achilles heel."

Though they could still hear the music from their position way from the marquee, the crunching of boots on snow was closer than both of them had expected, and they turned,

"What did I miss?" Al called, tugging the edges of his scarf against the cold he'd stepped into.

"Rose just realized she's been in hate love with Scorpius for six years." Tessie said, and Al barked a laugh,

"Jeez, finally?"

Rose shot him her best unimpressed look, but he only laughed again.

* * *

The cold was bracing against the warming charm, but judging by the glazed look of shock in Rose's eye, they'd needed the privacy. Al stepped closer, huddling against his cousin for warmth.

"What prompted this realization?" Albus pressed, "Give me all the details."

Rose deadpanned, "He took me on a Potions desk."

Al's face scrunched at the mental image he was assaulted with, " _Too_ many details, thank you." But then her words caught up with him, "Wait, wait. Does this mean you're no longer part of the sad virgin club? Do you mean he _took_ you—like actually? God, who am I going to complain to about my virginity now?"

"No, not quite," Rose blushed, "I mean, there were hands—or fingers rather, and I—"

"Alright, alright." Albus said quickly, "I get the point."

"Speaking of boys," Tessie segued, "where's your hunk gotten to?"

Albus supposed he hadn't exactly _hidden_ Taki, but Tessie's comment was a strong reminder that two very different parts of him were mingling somewhere under the marquee, and Al had left them completely unattended. He tried not to let the panic show on his face,

"I left him to fight off the Weasleys by himself. Last I saw, Nana Molly was slow-dancing with him to Celestina Warbeck in the kitchen, ever uncomfortable as he looked. But you two were clearing out at an impressive pace—so I knew Rose was having some kind of crisis and my help was probably needed."

Rose shrugged, but she was distant with shell shock, "Just quickly dismantling everything I've ever thought for the past six years, no biggie."

Al could see she needed humour, but wouldn't be surprised if he and Tessie had to go around and collect her later, "So, what now?"

"'What now?'" Rose echoed.

"Traditionally, when you realize you're in love with someone, you endeavour to let them know."

Rose paled, "Jesus, I can't even think about that."

Al sighed. It had always been an open secret that Scorpius and Rose had some weird angry tension going on, but he'd always assumed they'd never act on it in their school years—instead having an illicit affair in their forties beyond their spouses' backs, like most normal people.

"If it makes you feel any better," Al said, "Scorpius is just a human. Well, I think he is, anyway. I have shared a dorm with him for six years, so I think I have it on good authority to say so. And also, he's in exactly the same position as you."

"He is?"

Al shrugged, "I don't think he's been forced to realize it yet—but it I assume both of you participated in the desk incident?"

"Well, yeah—but he seemed so ashamed afterwards and—" Rose launched into a description of the aftermath, and how Scorpius had looked utterly horrified at their actions. The detail in which she described it, Albus knew she'd been terrorizing herself with it, probably running it over and over in her mind in the tortuous way they were both so good at.

Al felt a pang of guilt—he should've kept up with her, not getting caught up in his issues with Taki and travelling. But the holiday season was always so hectic, and Al's mind had been in a thousand different places. Ginny had mentioned that Rose had left the Christmas dinner with her family looking a bit ill, but Al hadn't had a moment to think on it.

"I don't think his horror would've been directed at _you_ , Rose. Thing is, Slytherins are reserved and uptight, and Malfoy is both those things times ten. Such a passionate and vulnerable moment probably surprised him as much as it did you—he's probably ashamed for showing you his soft side."

"You think so?" The hope in Rose's voice was so puppy-doggish Al's heart melted a little.

"I'm absolutely certain. Just talk to him, straighten it out. I know he's been an asshole to you, but he's actually a pretty reasonable guy."

Tessie—the only one facing the marquee—suddenly looked over Al's shoulder, focussing in on something in the distance, "Looks like your hunk escaped Nana Molly's grasp." She noted with some amusement, and Al whipped around.

Taki was by the nibbles table, talking with Ginny and Harry. His face was so open and earnest, gesturing madly as he talked. Al felt a pang of fondness—did these things ever fade?—until he caught his father's expression, which was scrunched up as though he was tasting something unpleasant. The previous pang dropped into something low and fearful, and he knew something was going down.

"Ah, shit!" he muttered to himself, "I'll be right back." He said to Tessie and Rose, barely looking back, before taking over at breakneck speed to where Taki and his parents stood under the marquee.

He caught the tail end of Taki's sentence, just as he joined the group, "—and the trip will be professional, before all else. That's where my priorities lie, and where Al's lie too."

"Ah! Hello!" Al cut in quickly, a manic smile an attempt to smother his panic, but Taki must've seen something in his eyes, as the boy's face fell.

"Trip?" Harry had turned to Albus now, "Something you've neglected to mention, Al?"

"Oh, shit." Taki muttered beside him, "Albus, I'm so sorry, I didn't—"

Al's whole body was sweating profusely, a trickle ran down his neck under his scarf, "Ah, Taki's asked me to join him on an expedition. He's writing a book, and he needs an assistant for a year—it's a, uh, study in equatorial ecology. It's, uh, a gr-great opportunity, you see and—"

"Ecology! That's right up your street, Al!" Ginny was trying to do damage control too, her manic panic-covering smile identical to Al's.

"A year? You'll leave after you've finished school?" His father was a dog with a bone when he wanted to be, and Al could see the determined glint in his eye.

"Not quite, see, Taki's leaving in June—"

"June! June this year?!"

"It's not twelve yet, so it's still actually June _next_ year—"

Harry cleared his throat, "Albus, I don't suppose we could talk outside the marquee for a moment?"

But his father wasn't waiting for an answer, he all but frog-marched Al from the gazebo, Ginny and Taki watching on as though they wanted to step in, but knew better of it.

The gust of cold on Al's face stung a little more this time, but maybe because he was being escorted forcefully from the warmth, his quietly fuming father at his back.

"Al!" Harry started, pushing his glasses up his sweaty nose with his index finger, "What on earth is going on?!"

"Well, as I said _in_ the tent," he could feel his temper beginning to prickle, as panic faded, "I've been offered a fantastic professional opportunity—"

"Eloping with a boy isn't a professional opportunity!" Harry cut in, something flashing in his eyes, " _Especially_ when it's cutting your education short!"

Al didn't enjoy the feeling of being condescended—his father's exasperation making him feel like he was an idiotic five-year-old, "I'm not eloping—we're writing a book! And it's going to advance me far more in life than my bl—bloody education is! I hate it! I hate my school work, I'm absolutely terrible at it! Every minute I spend writing an essay, or sitting in a bloody classroom, I want to throw myself off the Gryffindor tower! It's awful!"

He was red faced now, whether it was embarrassment or anger he wasn't sure.

"If you're struggling in school, we'll get you a tutor—you don't need to go galivanting off with a—" Harry gestured with frustration at Taki, who stood in the tent with Ginny, squinting out at them, "with some—hunky foreign boy!" He finally spluttered.

If Al wasn't so angry he might've laughed at his Dad's word choice, but rage was too loud, "It's not about the grades, I just hate it! Some people aren't made for school, and I'm one of those people!"

Harry pushed his glasses up again, clearly trying to contain his own frustration, and Al had never felt so little, "That's irrelevant! Even if you hate it—you need the qualification! You have to finish your NEWTs, it sets you up for life—"

Al snorted, "Well, that's bloody hypocritical, isn't it?"

Harry's face darkened, "Don't even _try_ to bring my experiences into this—you know my situation was completely different."

"So what, I'm supposed to find some racist despot to bring down, and _then_ I can leave school early?"

"I had a viable career lined up! I had options! What—you go travel with this boy, write a book? What then? You think royalties from a bloody book will pay rent? What then? Then you're a half-educated kid who ran off his—boyfriend, and your name probably won't make it onto the front cover!"

"It's not about _him_ , it's an opportunity—"

They'd graduated to shouting at some point, but Albus couldn't remember when. His heart was pounding in his chest, his face was flaming against the cold, and he was so furious he wanted to burst into tears. He fought not to let it show in his voice.

"Yeah right, 'it's not about him.'" Harry scoffed, "You've let this older boy talk you into following him out of school—you're just a child! You don't know what you're doing!"

Al let his voice drop, embarrassed at the idea of being heard by Taki, but the low tones let the bitterness and hurt in, "Well I'm sorry for being an underachiever. I'm sorry I'm not an effortlessly brilliant boy wizard with the fate of the world on his shoulders. But I'm not going to stand in your shadow forever, doing what _you_ think is right. I'm leaving on this trip. If you won't give me the money, I'll fund it myself. And even if I leave, and we're on terrible terms, and I don't hear a single word from you the whole trip, I'm not going to regret my decision. Because _I_ made it."

Albus was brimming to the rim with anger and disappointment, all twisting into an odd sadness. He could tell his father still had a thousand things to say, but it was as though Al's words had put a pin in him, his whole body deflating as the anger rushed out.

"If you don't mind," Al continued, "I'm going to have one of Nana Molly's leftover Christmas pies. I imagine they're pretty hard to find in Equator."

It was a petty thing to say, but he didn't want for a response, storming back to the marquee. It seemed the party was going on without them. Though his father's fury had been Al's whole world for the last few minutes, but their voices hadn't even reached the marquee. Ginny rushed towards him as he stepped back into the warming charm,

"I'll talk to him." Ginny promised, "He loves you."

Al was trying _really_ hard not to cry now, he spotted Taki standing by the snacks table, looking like a kicked puppy, "I know. We'll talk back at the house."

Ginny let him go, seeing where Al wanted to be.

Taki's apologies started before Al had even reached him, "God, I am _so_ sorry. I just assumed you'd told them about the trip—they seemed so chill about you coming out, I thought they knew everything and I—"

"It's fine." Al smiled, giving Taki as reassuring squeeze on the arm, "I think Dad and I have been needing to have that conversation for a while now."

Taki didn't look convinced, "Really? It looked like a lot of shouting."

"I have complete faith it'll be fine." Al was on the comedown, he'd never felt so assured before, "But I've finally got an answer for you."

"You do?"

"Yes. That's the answer, by the way. I'm coming on the trip."

Taki's creased brow lifted, but Al didn't see it for long, before Taki pulled him into a tight hug.

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, sorry for the long delay between chapters! Life keeps taking away my writing time. Also, I've done that thing again where I write until 4am, and am then too drained to do a spelling/grammar check so I'm sorry for any glaring errors. Thanks again for the lovely reviews, you're all wonderful!**


	17. My Tongue Tells the Anger of My Heart

_Monday 9_ _th_ _January 2023_

Rose only had two ways to make decisions—either rushing into it headfirst, or mulling over it in such painful detail that she ended up talking herself out of everything and lying in bed for a day.

For one, she blamed her parents. Both had such different natures; completely opposing not just with each other, but themselves. Her mother was level-headed and logical, but also emotive and impulsive and wild. Her father was laid-back and cheery, but stroppy and moody and occasionally foul-tempered.  
The combination resulted in her oil and water personality, how she only sat at either ends of the spectrum, incapable of middle ground. It made sense that she had passed from loathing, directly to affection, with no rest in the middle for a kindling friendship.

Her friends knew this. Whenever Rose zoned out for a minute, she'd be brought back by Tessie,

"You better not be overthinking it. Rose Weasley-Granger, come hell or high water you're telling that boy how you feel." With her accent, she sounded like a stern catholic grandmother, not giving Rose a second to suggest otherwise.

But, she recognized the relief of knowing. Finally having something to explain emotions she'd had since the beginning, which she'd always thrown on the miscellaneous pile she'd labelled 'hatred'.

Sickly butterflies weren't hatred. Tracking someone down to yell at them, and see their face heat at your words, just because nobody else could scratch that unexplainable itch—that wasn't hatred.

Sheer stubbornness and old-fashioned denial had had Rose pulling the wool over her own eyes, and finally being forced to realize her own feelings had been a strange, sad relief. It was letting go of a lie so old it had become familiar company. Yet when Tessie had pointed it out on New Year's, there'd been an undeniable lightness. A feeling of: oh, right. _That_.

Rose would tell him. It didn't matter if he never looked in her direction again, if he cursed her right between the eyes. It especially— _especially_ , Rose told herself—wouldn't matter if the feeling were unreciprocated. Because she just needed to say it. In the spirit of Gryffindor bravery.

Because she knew if she didn't, if she continued to talk herself out of it, Rose would be nothing but what-ifs and could-bes—and she didn't want to be made of nothing but hypotheticals. She didn't want to need to get on her broom every time she couldn't sleep, or drink alcohol because it was a temporary solution.

"I just think it's better out than in." Rose said finally. The other girls in their carriage, who's rapt attention she'd held for the last twenty minutes, nodded in agreement, now up to date on the events of the last month and a bit.

Tessie snorted, "Is that from _Shrek_?"

"What?" Rose was thrown off by her friend's random outburst.

"'Better out then in'? You know… Shrek?"

"What the fuck is a 'Shrek'?" Georgette asked, and Tessie sighed in exasperation.

It was starting to grow dark out, and Rose knew they'd be back at the castle soon. Tessie was gushing about a present she'd sent Elgar for Christmas, and the boy in general—'he's really interested in the Paris Commune, I guess they don't teach much Muggle history at Durmstrang. He said he wanted to go to Beauxbatons but his French wasn't quite up to scratch, and Germans traditionally go to Durmstrang—' and Rose tried hard to be attentive, as Tessie had been for her these past few weeks.

But as Rose's opportunity approached, she was quickly realizing her mental proactiveness would now have to translate into something real. That _was_ the idea, Rose reminded herself, but fantasizing about the possible ways a conversation might go was much more comfortable than the real thing.

* * *

Albus and his father had barely been on speaking terms when he'd boarded the train. They'd managed a hug goodbye, and even a 'see you in June', but it was strained and awkward and Al hated it.

Ginny knew not to push it, however. She recognized the similarities in Al and Harry, and knew how to handle both of them awfully well. She'd said as much to him the night before he left, as the two of them shared a pint of ice cream in the kitchen just past midnight. As much as he was like his father, he and Ginny's midnight cravings were always unnervingly in sync.

"You're too much like one another, and that's the problem. You're both bloody stubborn—when your father sets his mind to something, he's like a dog with a bone. And you're exactly the same!"

"Well," Al had grumbled, as he'd excavated a large brownie chunk from the tub, "he'd better get over himself, because I'm not bending on this one."

Ginny had laughed, "You know, he said almost the exact thing about you."

"He did?"

Ginny finally spotted the brownie chunk he'd unearthed, "Hey, I haven't found a single bit yet! Go halves."

"No way!" Al protested, holding his spoon out of her grasp, "Finders keepers!"

But, in the spirit of midnight snacking, he acquiesced, putting the chunk back in the tub for both of them to work away at.

"I think for your father, it's a bigger issue than just 'education'." Ginny continued, after a decent mouthful of brownie bit, "While that part is of definite importance—and yes, we will be having _that_ discussion later—it's part of his own regrets as well. Not only are you so much like your father in spirit, you're a spitting image of him. He's sees himself as you, and is unintentionally projecting his own issues onto you as a result of that.  
"He hasn't mentioned it to you before, but your father regrets not finishing school. At the time, he wasn't interested at all, and the Auror position was a lucrative offer—not that he regrets taking it. But I think he wishes he had a full qualification to his name, despite what he's achieved. To see you make the same decision is especially difficult for him."

Al felt a burst of irritation despite himself, "Just because I look like him doesn't mean I should bear the brunt of his regrets. How is that fair?"

Ginny shook her head, "I never said it was. But you've got to have some understanding, Al. Your father didn't have a supportive father figure for most of his formative years. He has no idea what he's doing, and he's absolutely terrified of stuffing it up. He'll make mistakes, just like I make mistakes, just like Nana and Poppa made mistakes with me, all of us. Especially Ron, as I'm pretty sure they dropped him on his head as a baby."

Albus suppressed a snort of laughter at that, but, as per usual, his mother had appealed to the sympathetic mediator within Al, who couldn't help agreeing with her,

"Fine, alright. You're right. But I'm still sticking to my guns."

Ginny shrugged, "I wasn't expecting a miracle, just some understanding."

"But," Al continued, as though he were negotiating a business transaction, "I'm still entitled to throw a teenage temper tantrum."

Ginny nodded seriously, "Of course. Just try keep the door slamming between 9am and 10pm, and I'll be happy."

Taki had fled in the wee hours of New Year's, leaving from the Burrow's Floo—recognizing that heading back to the Potter's wasn't likely to make him popular.

At least, if there'd been something positive of the whole experience, James had finally shut up about Al's inability to pull.

A very drunken James had approached him under the marquee just after midnight, after Al and Taki had snogged heartily to celebrate the arrival of 2023. Taki had nipped off for drinks, and James had stumbled over, a ruddiness to his cheeks reminiscent of a man three times his age. Most likely brought on by the half a bottle of Firewhiskey Albus had watched him drink over the course of the night.

"You know," James slurred, clapping a brotherly hand on Al's shoulder, "your boyfriend's a bit of a looker, isn't he?"

"I certainly think so." Al had hummed in amusement, his lip still a little pink from the passionate moment only minutes ago, so he didn't bother correct James' assumption.

"He's got lovely, manly arms, doesn't he? Looks like they could hold you tight through a frosty winter. Or that kind of roughed up, outdoorsy look he's got going—awful scruffy and all. He looks like he could build a treehouse for the kids, you know? And he'd chop wood for the fire, looking all sweaty with wood chips in his hair…" James trailed off, a strangely faraway look in his eye.

Albus snorted, "Merlin James, you sure _you're_ not gay?"

James shook himself a little, "Me? Nah. I'm right into the ladies, mate. I like how soft women are, you know? All soft and squishy. And soft. And they always smell really soft and nice. Whereas blokes are all sweaty, and hairy and hard. Not soft at all. You know?"

Al laughed, "Yeah, I know."

"I was just saying," the longer the talked, to more drunk James appeared, "I can see the appeal. I was just making sure he meets my approval, you know? Because you're still my little brother—and I know I give you and ribbing and all, but it's still my job to look out for you. Make sure no one is taking advantage, you know?"

"Of course, thanks James." Al was teasing a little, but this was all James seemed to need—giving Al another firm slap to the shoulder.

"Good stuff." James nodded—blinking so slowly it looked as though he had to fight his eyes open, "Now, I need to go see Freddie bloody Weasley about a drink. The prat thinks he can drink me under the table—he'll see about that."

James had left the day after, nursing a headache and grumbling about 'Freddie bloody Weasley'.

Now, Albus was gathering his belongings, trying to usher Oscar back into his cage, as they prepared to disembark from the Express. The trip to Hogwarts hadn't been horrific, he and Scorpius had just talked without actually talking, each delicately skipping around certain topics with a level of awkwardness—Taki for Al, and Rose for Scorpius. Al hadn't even dared to say her name, seeing how Scorpius had flinched when Al talked about New Year's in passing.

Now that he knew the story behind Rose and Scorpius, and the extent of what had _actually_ passed between them—Al shuddered, he didn't like to picture his cousin and best friend doing _that_ —Scorpius' behaviour made a lot more sense. While his best friend was perceptive, it was likely he'd be doing his very best to deny whatever he was feeling currently, in the aristocratic fashion at which he was well practiced.

Maybe Rose's words would spur him to action, cause a little bravery of his own. Either way, Al would see the two of them together at some point, that was inevitable—but whether it was in ten hours or ten years would remain to be seen.

"I promised I'd walk with someone to the castle—I'll see you at the Slytherin table?" They'd hadn't spoken much in the last hour, Scorpius' voice was a little throaty from underuse.

"Yeah, cool. I'll see you in there." Albus didn't say he'd catch up with Rose and walk with her instead, not enjoying the way Scorpius stiffened at mere mention of her name.

* * *

Like usual, she wasn't hard to spot; her flaming hair a beacon in the almost darkness. Especially when paired with Tessie's bright blue, the pair were two emergency flares in a sea of blonde and brunette.

When he caught up, he watched as Rose instinctually scanned for signs of Scorpius with a frenzied look in her eye,

"He's walking with someone else." Al said quickly, just to put the poor girl out of her misery.

But behind the obvious panic, he could see something building in his cousin that apparently brewed in intensity over the train ride—a strange determination, a frustrated bravery. Al was a little taken aback; he'd obviously underestimated his cousin's tenacity. Because while Scorpius could run circles around his true feelings, Rose had a streak of aggressive honesty he often forgot about.  
Once Rose had decided to do something, and had fully adjusted to the idea, she'd do it if it killed her. And it seemed confessing her feelings to Scorpius had become her new idea, and she'd locked onto it completely.

Maybe stubbornness was more genetic than he'd given his mother credit for.

They chattered harmlessly, and Al watched with silent approval as Rose participated happily, far more engaged than she'd been three weeks ago. It was already apparent the effect of their discussions over the holidays had had on Rose; emotional epiphanies were a good look on her.

* * *

Rose wasn't deliberately looking for him when they entered the Great Hall. It was a reflex—first she'd search for the green tie, before her eyes flicked up for the white-blonde hair to confirm. But he wasn't at the Slytherin table yet—a cursory check confirmed—and Rose squished down the flare of anxiety that had been holding her quietly hostage all train ride. She wouldn't give into it, not allowing it to make her decisions for her.

She caught Al's eye from across the hall. He sat alone, watching her with mirrored nervousness. The Hall was almost filled, and Scorpius was still notably absent.

Rose worried the inside of her cheek with her teeth, eyes darting from Albus whenever there was new movement near the still-open double doors.

It was a long ten minutes before she caught his familiar shape in her periphery—she'd been fiddling with her napkin in her lap, twisting it into increasingly tight knots in an attempt to distract herself.

She hadn't, she realized, seen him in more than two weeks. After weeks of forced interaction with him, it felt like an unreasonably long period of time.

After watching the door with agonizing care, she was now terrified at the idea of seeing him again. Her thoughts were racing, but she forced her gaze upwards anyway, tracking his movement across the hall, to his usual place beside Albus.

He didn't look any different—of course he didn't. It had only been two weeks.  
The only different thing, Rose realized, was the girl latched to his side. He and Avery were holding hands, and every so often, Avery leant up to plant a possessive row of kisses across whatever surface of his skin she could reach.

Faintly, in the background, Tessie let out a string of filthy curse words, punctuated only by Scorpius' name. Rose didn't pay much attention though, she was too preoccupied with processing the sight before her.

Rose struggled to find an apt metaphor to describe how she felt—but she supposed it was something like having one's heart Transfigured to paper, if that paper was then screwed up into a tiny ball and flung across the room.

* * *

Albus wasn't sure he'd felt this angry before. Beyond red, stinging rage all he could picture was how his cousin's face had fallen, as something inside her visibly shut down. Whatever had cautiously peeked out of her the past few days-soft and careful and optimistic—had only taken a moment to disappear again.

It wasn't helped, either, by Scorpius' blissful ignorance. He and Lauren had played a perfect couple over dinner, groping and snogging between bites, feeding each other when the dessert items appeared. Scorpius either hadn't noticed or had politely overlooked the waves of tangible fury rolling off Albus. Because while Scorpius was his best friend, the lines had to be drawn somewhere. There was understanding and mediation, and then there was reasonable and logical outrage. Scorpius' actions had finally, in one of the few times in the course of their friendship, strayed into the second category.

After checking on Rose after dinner—who'd sworn she was 'fine', but clearly anything but—Al stormed to the Slytherin dormitories for a good, hoarse yelling. He wasn't entirely sure if Scorpius was there, as Al had left the Marauder's Map in his dresser for the holidays, and he cursed himself for it now.

Even if the boy _had_ snuck off with Avery, Albus was angry enough to wait up. He briefly envisioned himself sitting on Scorpius' bed, lighting a _lumos_ when the boy attempted to sneak back in, hissing a 'where were you?' like a furious parent.

But as he slammed the door to their dormitory open, he found Scorpius in his bed—quite alone in the room—sitting up and staring blankly into space.

Albus wanted to hit him. He realized this was how Rose had felt for many years, seeing his pretty mug and wanting nothing more than to sink her fist into it. He felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, before storming over to Scorpius' bedside. The boy seemed to be in a trance—he didn't even acknowledge Al's arrival.

"You—!" Al fumed, drawing his fist back and briefly considering his options. He didn't want to hit Scorpius in the face—in the same way one wouldn't waltz into the Tate and put one's fist through a Picasso. The boy _really_ was too pretty for his own good, Al thought angrily, as he flailed madly and ended up punching Malfoy in the chest.

"Ow!" Malfoy suddenly leapt to attention, as though only just noticing Al's presence, "you just punched me in the tit!"

Albus was so uncharacteristically angry he couldn't form an answer, "You're a man! You don't have tits!"

Scorpius was rubbing it now, looking affronted, "Everybody has breast tissue—and it's very tender!"

Al was frothing, "You—my—Rose, you arsehole! You fingered her on a table _two weeks ago_ , and suddenly you're back with Avery?! What is wrong with you?!"

Scorpius' didn't look so outraged at that, and his face fell, "Oh. Right."

"I can't believe you! Things were getting good between you two, and then you go and—!" Al's anger was quieting now, and it wasn't quite as satisfying to yell at a man who looked as despondent as Scorpius. He wasn't even fighting back, just sitting there and looking all mopey and depressed.

"I don't get it." Albus sat beside his friend, "You've been pining over her for years—"

"I have not—!" Scorpius immediately protested.

"Oh, shut up." Albus scoffed, "I'm mad at you, so it's my talking time. And stop deluding yourself. You've always had far more than an average interest in my cousin."

Scorpius scowled, but didn't try to defend himself.

"I don't get it." Albus sighed, "This is the kind of nonsense I'd expect from a bloke far dumber than you, Scorpius. You're fully aware of the way Rose has warmed to you—I bet you knew before she did. Because you're a crafty bugger, and you're far too smart and manipulative for your own—and Rose's—good. Why are you sabotaging it?"

Scorpius took a shuddering breath, fiddling with the robes he hadn't changed out of yet.

"It's my fault." He said quietly, "I just didn't want her to hate me anymore."

"And now she doesn't! You've done it—she's all twisted up over you, and it's been a nightmare to untangle."

"She has?" Scorpius looked a little less despondent at that, and if Al weren't still pretty miffed, he'd have pitied Scorpius.

"Of course, you idiot. But you've gone and blown it now, haven't you? You were all kissy with Avery in the Great Hall—she saw the whole thing. I must say, I think you set a world record for crushing someone's spirit."

Scorpius looked so down—so different from the person in the hall—that something clicked in Al's mind,

"But, you were just pretending, weren't you? You aren't back with Avery—you're just faking so Rose would see. Avery probably doesn't know it, but you know." Albus was weirdly intrigued, "What on Earth is going on, Scorpius?"

Scorpius' face had clouded over, and the boy—for once in his life—struggled with his words, stumbling as he found the right thing to say, "Rose and I can't be together."

"What—why not?"

"We can't."

"Scorpius—"

Something twisted in Scorpius, whatever thing they'd been close to, he shut down immediately, cutting Albus off.

"Leave me alone, please."

"If there's something you need to tell me, it's ok, you—"

"Leave." His tone was arctic.

Albus knew a lost cause when it came to Scorpius, and it seemed they'd hit a brick wall of epic proportions,

"Alright." He stood, taking a careful step from Scorpius' bed, "But if you ever need to talk, you know I'm here—"

But Albus didn't even get to finish his sentence, as the hangings around Scorpius' bed magically snapped shut.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm not happy with the writing here, my syntax is all off and the words wouldn't fit together correctly. One of those days, I think. Sorry, again, for errors, I need a beta and I always write very late at night.**

 **I just want to give a quick thank you for the lovely reviews - especially glassycry because your comment made me cackle. And yes, this fic will be finished in the next few chapters probably. It depends how long you'd like it to continue, I'll be asking you all for your thoughts when we approach the end. Thanks again!**


	18. Melancholy Is the Nurse of Frenzy

**A/N: I struggled immensely with this chapter, it's probably had about four different drafts and I hated all of them. So we're doing a few perspective leaps just to freshen things up a little, and for a little bit more character background. Also a note I feel I have to make: the sentiments expressed in this chapter in regards to religion are not necessarily mine. Thanks!**

* * *

 _Monday 16_ _th_ _January_

Georgette's thighs and calves were burning by her eighth lap of the Quidditch pitch, but she pushed herself to ten. The pitch was the only place could go for her morning run in the middle of winter—spells kept the space free of snow, as impeded boundary markers made it difficult for referees to call penalties and offsides.

But it wasn't as though Georgette minded. Nothing felt as familiar as the pitch, and her presence on it had always been inevitable. Her father had raised her on the adrenaline of the game, and he'd always discussed her position as Gryffindor captain as though it were set in stone, daring fate to intervene.

She knew her friends viewed her obsession with Quidditch with pity, as though her father had groomed her into the lifestyle. But Georgette thought she'd always have found Quidditch—whether her father had encouraged it or not.

She was fond of the tactical aspect of it—reducing people to players, and the chaos of the field to actions and reactions. She liked the way everything had a rule, every movement and decision on the field was preordained and regulated, by the thousand games played by thousands of athletes before her.

When she was in motion she could make a map in her mind, seeing passes and paths to winning. There were so many variables, all dependent on the players themselves and how they reacted under the buzz of panic and adrenaline. It was a study in the simple and the complex, but she found it came naturally. The Ravenclaw team were a clear example. Many people underestimated the role of the Seeker in a game of Quidditch. But Selwyn was their strongest player, and the other members of the team relied on his presence on the field. Most games he'd be found shouting directions to some players, because while Ravenclaws were smart, some lacked simple intuition. So without his constant instruction, the team had fallen apart—just as Georgette had predicted.

But what her friends didn't realize was that her love of Quidditch was as much for herself as it was for father. Cormac had always been an active person—a kinaesthetic learner. When her mother had passed six years ago, he'd taken the loss with some difficulty. Grief had trapped him within the walls of their house, and Georgette had taken it upon herself to drive him up and out of bed each day. She'd used the excuse of Quidditch practice to get him moving.

Georgette saw now that it was never going to 'fix' what her father had been going through, but in her ten-year-old mind it was her attempt at a solution.

The air was so cold that each exhale was a cloud of steam, and each inhale stung somewhere deep inside her chest. At least there was a hot shower waiting for her in the changing rooms, but then it'd be straight to breakfast, and classes immediately after. She almost wanted to push herself to do another lap, just to enjoy the silence of the outdoors before she was shunted into stuffy classrooms for the rest of the day. But she was running short on time, and she didn't want to push herself too hard, lest she hurt too much for tomorrow morning's run.

The familiar exercise high was starting to die when Georgette was halfway through her shower, and she carefully massaged the ache out of her calves. Though she sometimes exerted herself a little too much, Georgette liked feeling herself growing fitter and stronger with each session, as her body adapted and learnt from the strain.

While often she credited her father for encouraging such a physical streak in her, she couldn't underestimate her mother's influence. Bea McLaggen had been just as active as her husband, but she'd channelled it into a more creative process—woodwork being her main area of expertise. Using techniques of old magic and plain magic-less handwork, she'd crafted furniture that sold for handsome prices to people across the neighbourhood.

She was responsible for making the display case above Georgette's bed; it had been a gift for her tenth birthday. Bea had said it was for 'all the Snitches she was going to catch at Hogwarts'.

Bea's death had been such a shock for Georgette because it had been the first event in Georgette's life that was entirely unscripted. It sounded silly in her head—death was an unpredictable inevitably—but everything else in her life, until that stage, had been nothing short of predetermined.

The suburb they'd lived in was the one Cormac had grown up in, and he had no need to move away. The house they'd lived in was the same her father had been raised in, as they'd had no need to buy a new one. Georgette had been enrolled in Hogwarts since before she was born, as that was her father's school and there was no need to attend another. Georgette had played Quidditch because her father had decided she would, even before her conception.

Bea's death had not been pencilled in on the family agenda, and that had shaken Georgette deeply.

Georgette was still caught up in her thoughts as she changed into her uniform for the day, buttoning her blouse with routine efficiency.

As much as Quidditch had been a unifying force for Georgette and her father, it was just as polarizing. Her father's passion for the game was relatively infectious, until he was screaming advice from the stands and she felt nothing but embarrassment. Sometimes she felt reduced to nothing more than a score, or a point margin, seeing how it affected Cormac's treatment of her.

Georgette knew her father had something to prove. Her performance was all twisted up in his own 'failures' at school, as well as the extra scrutiny he was under as a single father. He used Georgette's successes on the Quidditch pitch to confirm his abilities as a parent—not just to society, but to himself. But Georgette didn't want herself defined by her performance, and she felt under double the pressure, playing for her team and for her father.

"Ready to go?"

Georgette jumped at the voice, turning to scowl at Magda, who'd suddenly appeared in the doorframe of the shower room.

"Are you trying to make me shit myself?" Georgette snapped, tightening the knot of her scarf with a tug.

Magda smothered a smile, "Well, it'd make us even more late, so no." Her friend's cheeks were pink from the cold, but there were no snowflakes caught in her short hair, meaning it had finally stopped falling.

"Why'd you walk all the way down here just to take me to breakfast? You don't usually."

Magda shrugged, but it wasn't a casual gesture, "I wanted company. Tessie is fast asleep, and Rose is bed stricken with heartbreak."

Georgette frowned, "She's still not got out of bed?"

"I think I heard her get up very late last night to use the bathroom, but apart from that? No."

Georgette thought for a moment, trying to find the right words to explain her thoughts on it all. She'd never been as eloquent as the other girls—Rose could make any essay sound like a profound piece of literature, Magda had a lightning quick wit that always earned a laugh, and even Tessie's impassioned speeches about the dire state of the world were so inspiring that Georgette felt revolution bubbling in her blood. But with Georgette, words were just a means to an end, and she didn't have the talent to make them very pretty.

"Rose _feels_ things extra hard, doesn't she?" Georgette asked.

It didn't make much sense, but Magda nodded grimly, "Well put."

* * *

 _Monday 23_ _rd_ _January_

Prayer was a habit Tessie hadn't broken yet.

Tessie's relationship with religion was a complicated thing. She knew, in her most detached and logical mind, that she shouldn't believe in organized religion. Tessie, a champion of freedom and all things new and revolutionary, couldn't defend tradition. A way of thinking shouldn't be upheld for the sake of sentimentality, defended because it was how things had always been done.

Bread, blood and absolution. These were the traditions Tessie was raised on, all twisted up in her memories of her childhood, her memories of her parents, the history of her country. It was so dramatically juxtaposed with the person she'd grown to be—radical, rebellious and outspoken—that it felt as though she'd crammed two lifetimes into one.

Coming to Hogwarts had been an opportunity to leave it behind, emerge as someone she recognized and respected. She'd placed miles between herself and her family, trying to write off her formative years as nothing more than an experience in method acting—playing the role of what she thought she should be.

But it wasn't so easy to shake. Sometimes, Tessie's guilt was a weight that bore down from above, as though she was keeping a subconscious tally of sins she was yet to absolve. She had to try too hard to take the lord's name in vain, jealous of her friends who could flash a 'Jesus Christ' around without an accompanying pang of nausea. Most Sunday mornings she would jolt awake, hounded by the feeling that there was somewhere she was supposed to be.

Tessie knew she hadn't left as much behind as she liked to think. Her experiences weren't in isolation, she couldn't just pick them out and throw them away. It was the basis of her personality, when she was carefully piecing together a world view, those were her formative memories.

When Professor McGonagall had turned up at Tessie's house, something had clicked. When the strange woman in the billowing robes had discussed magic, Tessie had felt it all come together, as though she'd only previously had threads of an entire tapestry. But judging by the way her mother had clutched Tessie's hand under the table, she was the only one.

It wasn't unknown, McGonagall had said, for magical genes to present themselves once every hundred years in a family. It wasn't unknown for there to be only one witch or wizard in a large family. That explained why Tessie, youngest of six, was the first in family to go to Hogwarts. Sometimes Tessie had wished one of her siblings had been first—even if she was condemning them to a life disowned. Just so she could have company at the mysterious castle a whole country away, for one of them to tell her that everything would be ok. That she'd learn magic, that she'd fit in. But instead it had been terrifyingly lonely at times, and she ached for a single letter from her family, even just a word of acknowledgement.

Tessie didn't hate them. Maybe if she did the separation would've been easier. But they'd been loving and kind, and so close knit. Tessie had always been surrounded by people and noise and movement, their farmhouse was never quiet for a second. Tessie had been big fish in a pond where everyone knew her name, and she'd never felt anything but protected.

Odd things had happened to her, which none of her family could explain. What she now recognized as magical outbursts, her parents swept under the rug, giving it the stray dog treatment—ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

The news of her ability was unwelcome news in her parents' eyes. To them, their youngest daughter was condemned to an afterlife in hell. Their faith was so unwavering, they believed Tessie's fate with utter conviction. They hadn't attempted to intervene in her journey to Hogwarts however, seeing as her powers manifested in ways they never had before, and they knew the skills she'd learn would give her control over them—McGonagall had taken care to emphasize this point in their discussion, perhaps detecting her parents' reluctance.

They'd accompanied her to King's Cross, but their good-byes had been more permanent than the other expressed on the platform that day—Tessie's choice to go to Hogwarts, her choice to embrace magic—meant she was no longer a part of the family. She went back every summer—she had to, she had nowhere else to go—but she was practically a ghost. She was never invited to mass, never spoken directly to. Her parents tip-toed around her as if she were something to be feared, and never let her siblings be alone with her, as though she'd convert them to her side. She was treated like a leper in her own home. Now she was of age, however, she wasn't bound the farmhouse any longer. She was already looking for summer work, hopefully where accommodation was included.

It felt as though Tessie had had independence thrust upon her without asking. It was funny, really, her friends complained about overbearing parents and the restrictions of school, but Tessie craved those familial actions again. Even if her parents screamed and yelled and punished her, it was better to know they cared—their outright neglect showing the opposite.

If Tessie was honest with herself, prayer was a habit she hadn't tried to drop. Prayer was the last act connecting her to her family, and her previous identity. Her rosary beads were tucked in the inner pocket of her suitcase, burning a hole in the leather that Tessie struggled to ignore.

"I don't suppose I could copy your notes?"

Tessie had been applying mascara in her little mirror, and she nearly gouged her eye out at the sound of Rose's voice.

The girl was out of bed, and had even managed a shower, if her wet hair was anything to go by.

Tessie tried not to show her surprise—knowing Rose hated an ordeal if it could be avoided, and she was probably looking to slip back into usual routine with as little fuss as possible.

"Ah, sure, just let me—" Tessie fumbled for her backpack, which she'd thrown at the foot of her bed the night before.

She dug around for the scraps of parchment that contained her scratchy writing—Tessie had never been a model student, only tending to gather and organize her notes about two days before her exams. But she'd tried harder this week to keep notes, knowing Rose would inevitably want them once she'd crawled out of her funk.

Rose took them, her expression betraying nothing, trying to flatten the crinkled pages with her hands. Tessie knew a straightening charm, but it seemed Rose needed something to focus on besides Tessie's inevitable question,

"You ok?"

Rose didn't look up from the notes, but she wasn't reading them either, her eyes still on the page. Instead she hovered by Tessie's bed, standing, watching the pages. Tessie had almost given up on an answer when Rose took a breath, still not looking up,

"I know I always say it, but I'm sick of debilitated by factors outside of my control. I'm sick of being so affected by the actions of someone who I don't mean anything to. I've decided I'm no longer in love with Scorpius."

Tessie didn't want to say that it didn't work like that—that feelings left because you told them to, they couldn't be given the stray dog treatment. But she knew a fair bit about rejection, so she just sighed,

"It takes time. You won't feel this shit forever, I promise."

Rose's robotic expression scrunched for a second, twisting into something that looked recently familiar to it—especially if her swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks were anything to go by—but she squashed it down, fighting to smooth her expression out again.

"Thanks." She said instead, and carefully took the notes and tucked them into her bag.

That night, when Tessie figured everyone was asleep, she whispered an inaudible prayer for Rose.

* * *

 _Monday 30_ _th_ _January_

When people talked about Magda Urquart, her name was usually sandwiched between the words 'sweetheart' and 'trouble'. Magda liked her status in the community—she liked that people knew that she climbed out of windows and snuck into Muggle nightclubs.

Magda was the second degree that everyone knew, she could imagine her name coming up at parties and shouted over the bassline at bars—'Magda, yeah, that's Bridget's girl, isn't it? She's right trouble she is.'

Magda liked being an enigma, having all the connections but politely abstaining. She liked expanding her circle, and she was charismatic and quick-witted enough to warrant a memorable impression. She especially enjoyed her status amongst her Muggle peers—mysteriously procuring perfect fakes, and disappearing for nine months of the year. It was very mysterious, and she deliberately didn't fill anyone in.

At Hogwarts she was somewhat less sparkly, but living with people fulltime tended to do that. Magda preferred herself in less familiar terms—where she was a funny quip and a flirty wink before disappearing. Because everything fun happened in the places she wasn't supposed to be, and everything fun happened when she was there. She was a catalyst for events without trying.

Magda knew her charisma was magnetic, and she knew she got away with things most others didn't. She was loud and theatrical and electric, and people were attracted to it. She liked living nights that didn't seem real in the morning, because Magda was more ethereal in the dark.

It made her a little arrogant—she recognized that—but she wasn't wrong. People had told her as much, but they hadn't said it outright. The business man who bought her a drink offered her a trip to Cyprus, free of charge. The DJ who pulled her up on stage, and told her he had a room to himself backstage. The scout who'd said she was a little short, but had she considered acting?

It was her friends, she supposed, who kept her grounded. Magda knew she could get caught up in all that too easily, it was school and the mundane action of the week days that kept her from getting swept up in it all. Because she had enough common sense to recognize that beauty faded, and being fresh on the scene was only a brief advantage. Because there were a thousand girls prettier and more charismatic than her that were all vying for modelling and acting roles, all chasing the infamy that came with being the most popular girl in the room.

It had taken her a while to recognise, though. Her mother had attempted to rein her in—exasperated and frustrated that Magda insisted on making the same mistakes she had. But what, Magda had insisted, was really that bad about her mother's party days? Was she trying to say that Magda's existence was a mistake? Getting pregnant at seventeen hadn't turned out that badly, had it? That argument had led to Magda spending summer sleeping on a mattress on Rose's floor, and trying not to feel like a burden.

But where Magda had had her highs, she'd had her lows. Some of the nights she'd had aged her a little too quickly, but gave her the surprising advantage of being a guardian angel to her friends. Because while it was fun to be mysterious, witty, and brief, there was something more rewarding about counselling those who were a little lost in their own experiences, and being able to say 'we've all been there, you'll come out the other side.'

At least now, the arguments between her and Bridget had calmed, and they could peacefully co-exist over summer—Magda not being so hungover as she helped her mother sweep the floors of the salon.

Still, it sometimes itched, the urge to feel all eyes on her, to demand more from London's Muggle night scene, to end up somewhere unfamiliar when the sun reappeared. But it wasn't real—drunken conversations were rarely remembered in the morning, and everyone slunk off to their day jobs with nothing more than headaches. And when she spent her life waiting for the next Saturday night, she was living the rest in limbo.

"Magda. Hi."

Magda started as Ewan Diggory came around the corner, almost dropping her notes from that Potions lesson. Rose had taken off in the other direction, claiming she'd needed to visit the dorm before lunch, so Magda was alone in fending off her biggest admirer.

"Hello, Ewan. How's this Monday going for you?"

"Quite good, thank you." Ewan said quickly, obviously eager to get to the crux of what he wanted to say—another reason Magda despised him, he loved the sound of his own voice, "I just wanted to ask if you were free for the next Hogsmeade trip?"

Magda tried to sidestep him, but he cut her off, "Wow, there's another one coming up?"

"Yes, there is. I just thought because our last one went so well—"

Magda winced. She hadn't counted on Ewan being as quite a good kisser as he was. She hadn't counted on how nice Ewan smelt close up, and how they'd ended up in his Head Boy dorm after their date, with some heavy petting to accompany their snog session. She'd pointedly left out that part of the story when recounting the events of the date to her friends—she didn't want them thinking she had anything close to a _crush_ on the pompous git. It wasn't her fault Ewan's lips were so soft, and then when he took of his glasses, he had very pretty lashes and warm hazel eyes.

"I'm going to stop you right there, Ewan."

He paused, his lips pursing as she dealt the inevitable rejection. They'd done this dance hundreds of times before, she almost had to admire his persistence.

"While I had a lovely time," Magda allowed, "I don't know if we'd work."

She didn't know how to politely tell him that she'd caved to kissing him out of sheer loneliness, and it wasn't her fault he'd been quite a bit better at it than she'd anticipated.

"May I ask why?"

Magda winced, "It's just, we're very different _people_ , Ewan. You're studious, hard-working, and Head Boy. While I'm known as a bit of a trouble-maker, a barely above average student—"

He frowned, "If you're worried about your reputation sullying mine, I promise you I'll do my upmost best to dispel any ill-talk of you—I do have some sway, being Head Boy and all—"

She grimaced, "Thank you, Ewan, that is very… sweet. But I meant more on a personal level, on us being," she struggled for the word, "compatible."

Ewan pushed his glasses up his nose, the crease in his brow unseating them, "Well, I'm not sure what to say to that."

Magda didn't like turning people down—even though she thought she'd be good at it by now, "I'm sorry, Ewan. I've got to go to lunch, but maybe we could have a Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks on the day?"

He looked a little less downtrodden at that, at least. "Alright. See you later, Magda."

"Seeya, Ewan." And she high-tailed it out of there.

* * *

Magda was sitting in bed, flipping absent-mindedly through Witch Weekly and trying not to feel bad for Ewan, when the door to their dorm slammed open. The force of the act startled Magda enough to make her jump, which seemed to be the theme of the day.

"I want you to cut my hair."

Rose stood in the door, a little flushed as though she'd taken the tower stairs at a run.

"Alright." Magda sat up a little tentatively, pushing her magazine to one side, "I know it's traditional to have a post-break up haircut, but I'd advise you to think a little more—"

"Nope, I want this." Rose insisted, "And if you refuse to do it, I'll lop the hair off myself. We both know you'll do a far better job, so don't make me."

Magda stood from her bed, slowly making her way to where Rose stood in the doorway, brandishing her wand at her hair like a threat. It felt a little like approaching a spooked horse, but Magda didn't want to move suddenly and have Rose slice off a hunk by accident.

"Why?"

The determined look in Rose's eye didn't slip, and judging by the tightness of her jaw, the decision was already made,

"Because I want to see if I can."

Magda understood. It wasn't the act of cutting her hair—she wanted to test herself, break a habit she'd held onto since childhood. Because she'd been growing her hair since she was small—it was her identifier, the first thing strangers would comment on. Because sometimes you needed to test yourself, give yourself a little shake up to see if you could take it.

"Ok." Magda acquiesced, and Rose relaxed. "Pull up a chair and show me how short you want it."


	19. As Mountains Are For Winds

_Saturday 18_ _th_ _February_

They were on the tail end of winter now, and while it was pure optimism to insist that it was growing warmer, there was a lack of bite to the air as Taki, Rose and Albus made their way to the Three Broomsticks. Albus' birthday was the following day, and he'd insisted on a quiet gathering of his favourite people, and a few drinks at a table near the bar's hearth.

"If the Hogsmeade trip had fallen _after_ my birthday I could buy a proper drink." Albus grumbled as they walked in, looking pointedly at the students who cupped glasses of Firewhiskey in their hands, a proud symbol of their barely-adulthood.

Taki rolled his eyes, "You know Hannah well enough, I'm sure she'll bend the rules for you."

Albus seemed to perk up a little at the idea of a stiff drink, and the group negotiated around the crowds, lucky enough to spot a table only a few metres from the bar's central fireplace. A few empty glasses of Butterbeer littered its surface, but Taki took them up to the bar, promising he'd shout the first round.

After hearing so much about Taki, this was the first time Rose had actually spent significant time with Albus' beau outside of Hogwarts. So far, she'd had nothing but a good impression of the man. Rose especially liked the way Taki's eyes softened a little when he watched Albus talking, even if it did inspire an unmissable pang of bittersweet envy in Rose's gut.

Though Albus had invited his 'favourite people' to celebrate his coming of age at the Three Broomsticks, but there was a notable absence.

Rose watched Taki's progress across the bar floor, not wanting to look at Al as she 'casually' bought it up, "You know, I don't mind if Scorpius comes along. This is your birthday, and it should be about you, not us."

Al sighed, probably recognizing the careful tone in Rose's voice, and the way she suddenly sat a little stiff in her chair, "I did extend the invitation to him—whether he chooses to show is his decision."

Rose reached up to toy with a piece of her hair—a nervous tick—but feeling the change in length, and knowing she was capable of standing up against herself, was a grounding feeling,

"I'm sorry," she blurted, "I don't want the problems between me and Scorpius to affect your relationship with him—I never have."

Albus knew, she'd expressed as much in past years, even if she was still learning to actually articulate it, "I know, Rose. And I appreciate that. But I think the ball is in Scorp's court on this one."

Taki arrived back with the drinks—two Firewhiskeys and a Butterbeer, as May 18th was still painfully far for Rose—and the trio clinked glasses loudly in celebration of Al's almost birthday. The other bar patrons in their immediately vicinity caught wind, and Al was soon awarded many slaps on the back and promises for a drink shout.

"It's not my birthday yet." He reminded them with a bashful smile, going pink from attention all the same and hiding behind his glass.

But they cleared away soon enough, leaving the three of them to enthusiastic conversation and even more enthusiastic drinking. Rose even snuck a few sips of Al's drink as the boy got a little ruddy-cheeked, but it only made him more giggly and, if Taki's shock was anything to go by, his hands were wandering a little under the table. It was only more profound because Al didn't usually drink, but he'd sworn his seventeenth was as good a time as any to indulge, so the others—out of curiosity—had agreed.

After nearly snorting her third Butterbeer at a joke made by Taki, Rose realized this was the happiest she'd been since the tiding of the New Year. Rose's 2023 had not started on the best foot, and now that she was feeling the carefully familiar warmth of sore-ribbed, drink-snorting joy, it was in clear juxtaposition of the place she'd been for the past month. It was cautious, filling a place in her chest that had felt largely vacant, but it was so tender and kind that it was a reminder of Rose's losses.

It wasn't as though she'd said good-bye to Scorpius, if she'd ever really had him in the first place. Maybe that was what hurt most of all, the lack of closure she'd been given. But it had felt like something between them had been given the opportunity to grow, and they'd awkward cultivated it in their strange, not-quite courtship. The foundations had existed for years, even if Rose had ignored them, but it was the first time in their six years that Rose recognized the sparkle in his eye when they interacted, which she had misdiagnosed at hatred.

So a confession of her feelings had felt overdue, and she'd spent too much time imagining them together—imagining him confessing the same, imagining them building something stable, imagining sneaking into the Slytherins dorms to share a bed with Scorpius, not Albus.

She'd told her friends his feelings were irrelevant—that she'd tell him either way, that it was the truth that mattered. But Rose had underestimated how it'd feel seeing him across the hall, Lauren Avery wrapped around him like Devil's Snare.

Rose did try to write it off—but a mental rewrite of that volume apparently required a day in bed, which turned into a week in bed, until it felt as though there was a medicine ball pressing into her chest, pinning her there, and she couldn't shift it off.

Ridiculously enough, the thing that had finally spurned her into action was the realisation that her library ban had ended—and that she could reclaim her unofficial official seat by the big window. The thought of the space being dominated by snotty first-years stirred her into such a passionate rage that she managed to roll out of bed and have a shower.

What she hadn't accounted for, however, was the onslaught of memories that would assault her in the very chair, as she attempted to catch up on missed classes. The events that had transpired between her last stint in her spot and her current one would've been unforeseeable to her previous incarnation. The memory of his hand fisted in her hair, both in the library and during their last detention, were so vivid that Rose had felt like her body didn't belong to her anymore. Instead it felt like a museum of the things they could've been.

So, instead of studying, she'd stormed to Magda and insisted she cut her hair off, just so Rose could reclaim herself—making a decision over her body that was completely self-led. Luckily, Magda had agreed, because Rose knew she'd have butchered it if she'd tried it herself. Now it sat an inch longer than her jawline, the shortest she'd ever had it in her life. She didn't count on how satisfying the surprise of those around her would be—even a brave second-year had approached her in the hallway and asked why she'd done it. Rose knew her hair was her identifier, which was maybe why it was so liberating.

And it had been a tentative upswing from there—Rose could feel herself coming out of the other side, recognizing that she'd made it out okay. The month before, when she struggled to make it out of bed to even use the bathroom, it hadn't felt so likely.

Albus was swaying a little as he excused himself to 'the water closet' as he so eloquently phrased it. They watched him nearly trip over the leg of a bar stool before he was righted by a patron and went on his way.

"I wasn't looking to get him sloshed," Taki sounded surprised, "he's only had two."

Rose snorted, "He hasn't built up a tolerance—he hasn't even touched a drink since we were fifteen. I think the whole experience put him off."

A mischievous grin played around Taki's mouth, "Now that sounds like a story you should tell me while Al isn't around to get embarrassed."

"Oh God," Rose cringed, "it incriminates the both of us, really. See, we thought my father wouldn't notice a bottle missing from his liquor cabinet. And we also had no idea how deceptively strong the port would be, it's very sweet. But I do want to clarify that we were only fifteen and we had no idea what we were doing."

Taki laughed, "Merlin, did you finish the bottle?"

Rose nodded, "It's very easy to drink, unfortunately. I got off lightly, I think. I was just happy drunk, whereas Albus spent the whole time vomiting in my parents' compost bin. The worms seemed pretty happy about the whole situation, though."

Taki laughter was infectious, and even Rose was giggling at the memory of a young Albus kneeling over a stinky compost bin all green faced and miserable as Rose climbed trees and skipped around merrily.

Maybe it was warmth and a few glasses of Butterbeers that had slowed Rose's reflexes, but it was Taki who noticed the figure who'd joined them at the table. But 'joined them' wasn't the right way to describe it—instead the figure stood menacingly over their table, looking between them like he was searching for evidence of a crime.

"Am I interrupting something?" Scorpius snapped.

It was funny to feel both horror and elation at the same time—Rose had spent weeks being ignored by Scorpius, not allowing her to get near him, and had struggled with grieving for a person she still saw every day. But she also despised him in ways she never had before, for how he'd fucked her around, and for how he'd gone and made himself so important to her.

But then it caught up with Rose what Scorpius was seeing, and what he still didn't know about Albus—or Taki, for that matter.

"Oh!" Taki seemed to click as well, "Oh, we're not—"

But Scorpius was already leaving the pub, with enough rage to catch the murmured attention of the other patrons.

Taki looked confused, "Does Scorpius not know about Albus and I?"

Rose shook her head, knowing it wasn't a conversation _she_ should be having with Taki. Instead she felt herself pushing her chair back, finding her way to her feet with a conviction she hadn't experienced in weeks. Maybe it was Butterbeer, but she could feel a familiar fury beginning to brew, one that was so classic she'd almost missed it—and she knew she needed to punch Scorpius Malfoy right in his fat blonde head.

"I'll be right back." She said quickly, not sparing a glance for Taki as she marched across the bar for the door, the same one Scorpius had flung through in one of his pig-headed temper tantrums.

"Rose?" she heard after her, but she was teeth-grindingly furious for reasons she couldn't pin down but, as per usual, her more extreme emotions were caused and centred around Scorpius bloody Malfoy.

She made her way into the snow, recognising too late that she'd left her coat draped over her chair in the pub, but suddenly she spotted him, unmissable in tailored charcoal robes and his furious strides in the direction of the carriages, and she rushed to catch him, nearly slipping in the slushy, half-melted snow beneath her.

The boy was only a few feet ahead of her when she called, "You absolute arsehole!"

Scorpius stopped abruptly and whipped around, his fury matching hers, staining his cheeks a light pink, "Excuse me?"

"I said," Rose was finally in front of him, and she drew herself up despite the stinging cold, "you complete and utter prick!"

His posture tightened, and Rose realized he was clutching a parcel wrapped in green paper in his gloved hand, "You can't—"

"Yes I can!" she exploded, jabbing an icy finger into his chest. They were right in the middle of the main path, she knew people were watching, but she was too furious to care, "I think I've earned the fucking right, don't you?! You act so outraged when you think I'm with someone, as though you haven't had Lauren over you like a rash since the term began! Did that last detention not happen?"

"You're making a scene—"

"No!" she cut him off, "You'll shut up and listen, until I'm bloody well done! Alright?!" She took a sharp breath, she wasn't sure when anger had turned to threatening tears, but she blinked them back, "You at least owe me an explanation, alright? Because you act so bloody charming, like we're great—playing late night Quidditch games with me, getting friendly with all the Veritaserum nonsense… you even poisoned Selwyn! What am I supposed to think, huh? Is that just what you do with all your enemies?!"

Scorpius didn't look angry anymore, he just looked restrained, his jaw clenched like he was fighting to keep his expression neutral, desperately trying not to give anything away.

"And then—then you cut me off! I finally go to tell you how I feel, and you've gotten off with Lauren Avery! Like nothing ever went on between us, like I'd imagined the whole thing! You fucking gaslighted me, and for weeks and weeks I thought it was all in my head, I thought there was something wrong with me!"

Rose swore she saw the tiniest crack in his façade, something broke behind his eyes, but she wasn't nearly done, her frustration only mounting,

"So you're not allowed to act outraged if you see me having a drink with someone, alright?! I can have drinks with as many people as I want—I could've been sticking my tongue down Taki's throat and you wouldn't deserve even a sliver of outrage!"

He exhaled through gritted teeth—he was still so stiff, "I'm sorry." He muttered, so quietly it could've been a trick of the wind.

Rose scoffed, "No, you're not. If you were sorry, you would've talked to me. You would've come to me before you'd strutted Avery around like a show pony—you wouldn't have blocked me out when I deserved an explanation. And you especially wouldn't have made me develop feelings for you when you knew nothing was going to come of it."

For all her shouting, that was what finally struck the nerve that sent Scorpius' impenetrable expression crumbling. She watched it slipped, confused as to why she'd gotten through in her resignation and not her rage.

"You're right." He ran a shaking hand through his hair, and Rose traced the action with a familiar pang, "I should've let it be—but I'm selfish, so I couldn't. I—"

Rose kept quiet, just watching him, prompting him to continue. Whatever it was, Scorpius was talking gulping breaths as he tried to force it out. The students that filled Hogsmeade still watched them warily, and Rose was more aware of their eyes as she watched Scorpius' breathing grow more ragged, his shaking more pronounced.

"I told you a lie under the Veritaserum."

Rose shook her head, "That's impossible, you can't—"

"It wasn't a whole truth, but apparently real enough for the Veritaserum to let up." He explained, "I told you that I call you _Roza_ because of my governess, which isn't wrong, but—" he looked around them, scowling at all the people pretending not to be watching them, "I think maybe we should go somewhere a bit quieter."

They walked in silence to the clearing before the Shrieking Shack, relieved to find it empty, and Scorpius carefully lowered himself to a boulder. Rose preferred to stay standing, watching as Scorpius played with the collar of his robes, before twisting the fingers of his gloves tight around his fingers, opening and closing his mouth as he struggled to find the words,

"The whole concept of the _Roza_ demon was her fatality—how she was so hard to resist, for her beauty and her magic—but she was a guaranteed death. You weren't supposed to want her—it would only end in tragedy." He sighed, "I needed to remember that. Ever since I've met you, Rose, I knew you'd be it for me. You're so fucking amazing, and I'm so absolutely in love with you, Rose."

Rose was truly frozen now, both by her lack of coat and Scorpius' confession. She wouldn't have ever thought that Scorpius not only reciprocated, but had actually done so for years and years before she'd even recognized her own feelings—

"Shit, you must be freezing." Scorpius realized suddenly, drawing his wand from his coat and casting a warming charm over her form. It immediately abetted the numbness of her fingers, but didn't address the shock—Scorpius' words running around between them, as though she could unpack 'in love with you' into something less intimidating.

Scorpius seemed strangely calmed by his own confession, as though it was a relief to hear the words outside of his head, "Calling you _Roza_ —it was a reminder. Every time I wanted to tell you, every time I wanted to close the gap between us and kiss you, I'd call you 'Roza', reminding myself what would happen."

Rose couldn't blame the breaking of her voice on the cold, "I don't understand why I'm fatal. You haven't even give us a chance, you wouldn't know—"

Scorpius' face tightened in a way that indicated they'd reached the crux of the problem, "Yes, I do."

"Why?"

His hands were shaking again, Rose wanted to grab them, "I've never told anyone this before."

"It's safe with me." Rose meant it, too.

She watched, once more, as he put all the words together in his head, a tense minute passed before he asked, "Have you ever wondered why I've only ever dated pureblood girls?"

Rose opened her mouth to tell the truth, she like most of the school, had guessed he was a purist, but Scorpius winced, as though he knew her answer, "Alright," he said instead, "dumb question. But truth is, Rose, I'm cursed. My family is cursed. Families don't stay this pure for so many hundreds of years without some kind of magical interference. This," he reached up, indicated his hair, scarily light against a snowy backdrop, "is the mark."

"Cursed with dating pureblood girls?" To say Rose was confused was the half of it—she would've accused him of pulling her leg if it weren't for the tremor in his voice. She'd never seen him so sincere.

"Almost. It's a kissing curse. If I kiss someone who's not a pureblood, they'll die. It'll kill them, literally." He had the level of resignation in his voice of a person who'd processed something horrible in the past, and now the idea was so familiar it had lost its punch.

Rose had no idea how to process their conversation—it would've been impossible to foresee this. All she'd been expected, as she'd stormed out of the Three Broomsticks, was a good yell at Scorpius Malfoy, and then to finish her Butterbeer. But this…

"Are you—I mean, are you sure? Maybe it's such a silly rumour, there's all sorts of stories in the old families—"

He shook his head, "Nope. It's archaic blood magic—my father estimates it must've been cast by a grandfather at least eight generations back. He's done extensive research on the topic, and he's drilled it into me from such an early age. You know," Scorpius smiled sadly, now fiddling with the package he'd fetched from his pocket, "my father always insisted the most important thing in life was autonomy, that your decisions in life should be unrestricted and uninfluenced. I guess because he was backed into a corner when he was my age, he's always encouraged me to think for myself. Maybe if he'd raised me to be a blood purist, the curse wouldn't have caused problems for me.  
But here I am, backed into a corner because of a decision made hundreds of years before I was even born."

"I don't know what to say—" Rose was still processing, things adding up in her mind as she started seeing the whole picture, "did you say you've loved me since you met me?"

He shrugged, "Maybe that was an exaggeration, but it happened at some point on that train ride."

Rose remembered it now, all the way back to their first day of Hogwarts—how they'd happened upon Scorpius' cabin, where only he sat, huddled up with a book. Rose had all but barged in, she and Albus had been struggling to find a compartment after James had told them to shove off, and she'd introduced herself with enough enthusiasm to put a terrified look on Scorpius' face. They'd chatted the whole train ride, with Albus eventually warming up to the Malfoy boy—despite what Rose's father had said.

She'd almost felt a little betrayed watching them being sorted into the same house, as though she'd accidentally orchestrated her own isolation.

"Didn't you ever wonder why I was so awful to you? That train ride was incredible, we got on so well. I was totally enamoured with you. Then the next day, you came up to talk to us, and I was snappy and nasty—a right brat. It felt horrible, but I'd realized already what could bloom between us—and all I had in my mind was my father reminding me of what could happen, that the fallout from a kiss wasn't worth the action itself."

It was faint now, but Rose pulled it up in her memories, seeing Scorpius' turned up nose and chilling insults.

"If I'd really been trying—if I really wanted to leave you alone—I would've just ignored you. I bet it would've worked too, you probably would've written me off, and forgotten I existed. But I had no self-control, and instead I harassed you, because it meant I could be around you at least, and there'd be no risk of you wanting me. And I thought that your hatred would be better than complete apathy, I couldn't take that." Scorpius sighed, "But that didn't work either."

"You could've just told me—at least then I would've known, so you didn't have to pretend to hate me! Why have you kept this to yourself for so long, you—"

Scorpius didn't look at resigned at that, his jaw tightened in anger, "And what, have it confirmed that I really _am_ a filthy blood purist? That my family performed horrendous magic to ensure our line would stay pure? You think I wanted that label? How would you have treated me then—knowing that the blood on my family's hands was what lay between us and a future together? Having it rubbed in your face for years, incapable of being happy with me? I think the hell not."

Rose felt her mood mirroring his, "So why warm up to me during the detentions, then? Why out yourself as a good person? You know, another couple of months, and I could've been over you. The way you've treated me—I was ready to put any idea of you behind me. But you always have to redeem yourself at the last fucking minute, and I always have to forgive you, don't I?"

Scorpius anger was brief, it only took Rose's words to send him back into his self-pitying resignation, "Because I'm an arsehole, that's why."

"Obviously."

Scorpius paused, "Do you remember that fight we had, on our rounds, after I thought you'd concussed me?"

She nodded, it wasn't easy to forget.

"Well, it was then that I realized you really, truly hated me. Even though that was what I'd wanted for six years, it was far harder to have you actually scream it at me. I just wanted to tip the scales a little—I couldn't help it—so you wouldn't leave school with all horrible memories of me."

She scowled, "You _still_ poisoned my cauldron, though—"

"Well, yeah, I still thought you'd concussed me. I'm not perfect, alright? But being around you in those detentions, it was harder to pretend that I didn't care about you. Too much exposure, I think. Usually I can stand you in little doses, and keep my self-control in check, but you just filled the whole classroom up, just you and me for an entire hour and I couldn't escape and recollect myself." He frowned, "Why on earth did you cut your hair, by the way?"

She shrugged, "I suppose it was an expression of my autonomy."

He didn't look pleased, but he still nodded slowly, "I can understand that."

"So, when—we—on the desk—" however many people she'd told, it was weirdly embarrassing to recount it before him.

"That was a lapse in restraint, and I'm sorry for that."

She wanted to tell him she wasn't sorry, that it was incredible, but that was lame, but instead she asked, "Is that why you freaked out when I went to kiss you?"

He nodded, finally calm enough to stop fiddling with the parcel, and shove it back into his robe pocket, "That broke the trance, in a way. I realized how far I'd taken it, and I knew I needed to dial it way back."

She wanted to be angry, but it was similar to when he'd described to her the lengths he'd gone to poison her cauldron—frustrated fascination, "So you made up with Avery, or at least pretended to—"

"I have no feelings for Lauren." Scorpius said quickly, "She just wants the status of dating a Malfoy—nothing more."

While Rose didn't _like_ Avery, she still recognised it was a shitty move, "You really are—"

"An arsehole, I know." Scorpius finished, "I came to terms with it a long time ago, I'm surprised you haven't as well."

There was a long silence. Either party seemed to be digesting the revelations earthed during their long conversation; Scorpius rubbing at his temples as though he had a headache.

"So, you're cursed." Rose summarised.

"Quite."

"And you're in love with me."

"Very."

She sighed, feeling the wind starting to bite at the edges of Malfoy's warming charm, and she rubbed her arms.

"Well, what now?"

Scorpius sat up properly, his hands settling in his lap, and he looked genuinely earnest as he confessed,

"I have no idea."

* * *

 **A/N: I was so excited for this chapter I knocked out these 4000 words in about two and a half hours of solid writing. I hope you enjoyed! Also, thank you for all the lovely reviews! They keep me going through exam season.**


	20. Eight

_Saturday 25_ _th_ _February_

He didn't know why she was still here.

Scorpius' father had always insisted their family secret remain just that—a secret. Draco spent most of his adult life attempting to convince the wizarding world the Malfoy's weren't bigoted—anymore, and having the secret outed just proved his critics right.

They were almost right, however. It wasn't as though the hatred his family faced was unjustified. His grandfather had played a significant role in helping a tyrannical racist nearly rise to power, and it was still debatable whether or not he regretted his actions. Scorpius guessed he was remorseful that he was almost punished, and that he was largely inconvenienced, but he chose not to talk about it.

Scorpius was in the curious position of loving his grandparents, but being aware that they—Lucius in particular—weren't 'good' people. He was reminded of as much whenever the topic would stray to politics, or blood purity, at family dinners.

While his grandparents would do anything for him, they'd always spoiled him, he didn't think that would extend to bringing a non-pureblood girl home.

That was the reason he'd been mostly raised at Greengrass Manor, leaving his grandparents to Malfoy Manor. It had been the cause of, yet another, fight between his father and grandfather, but Draco refused to budge. Greengrass Manor was significantly smaller than Malfoy Manor, but Scorpius preferred how warm it always was, and how he didn't have to spend his days traipsing empty hallways in search of something to do.

He much preferred his mother's parents, anyway. He'd even told Nana about Rose, keeping her updated with how Rose was doing, and how Scorpius felt about her—which hadn't changed over six years. His Nana had even insisted he bring Rose over for a visit, despite the curse, even though Scorpius could've listed a thousand reasons why that would never happen.

But still, he didn't know why Rose was here.

When he'd told her about the curse, it had been his attempt at a goodbye. He knew she'd never reciprocate his feelings, because it was what he'd intended. But he thought he owed her the truth, because seeing her so furious over him was like a kick to the chest. So, he'd sat on that rock, his whole body locked up that the knowledge that 'this was it'.

For so long he'd been unable to let go of Rose, despite all the reasons they were impossible, and used the façade of rivalry to keep her close. But the line of keeping himself in her life, and remaining despised by her, was a thin and awful thing.

But with the truth, he'd finally decided that was it. He couldn't keep clinging onto her, it wasn't fair, she needed to recognise that none of it was her—it was all on him.

Rose had taken time to process what he'd told her—and she'd told him as much. She'd been largely absent for the week, only slipping in and out of classes and never saying a word to him. The muscles in his neck were sore from how hard he'd clenched his jaw, stopping himself from saying something every time she skirted around him, not meeting his eye.

But now she was standing in the doorframe of his Slytherin dorm, looking over Albus' shoulder and directly at him.

"You're not busy, are you?"

Albus looked back at Scorpius in shock—he'd assumed Rose's visit was concerning him, naturally. All Albus knew was that Rose had disappeared briefly during his pre-birthday drinks and returned with a gift from Scorpius and no explanation for where she'd been. For all Albus knew, Rose hated Scorpius with an unbridled passion and wanted to push him off the Gryffindor Tower.

Scorpius couldn't blame him though, he was pretty surprised himself, "Ah, no. No, I'm not busy."

She angled his head, and if Scorpius wasn't mistaken, a smile threatened the corners of her mouth—probably because Albus looked like the world as he knew it was crumbling before him,

"I don't suppose you'd want to join me in the library, then?"

Albus' mouth had now dropped open, and it was almost as satisfying as having Rose speak to him again,

"Just let me grab my bag."

* * *

The walk to the library was awkward in ways their interactions never had been before. It was funny, he'd taken for granted how easy it was to talk to Rose—even she was punching him, or he was tearing her to pieces, it came with an ease their current silence lacked.

"I assume you know what you're doing." They were traipsing up the main staircases, and Rose had a determined set to her jaw that always meant trouble.

"I was thinking we'd start in the general section first, but if necessary I could probably get permission for the restricted section—and judging by the nature of the curse that'll be where we find the most material. I was thinking of writing to my uncle as well, he's a curse breaker so he'd probably—"

Scorpius slowed, "That wasn't what I meant."

"I know." The almost-smile was back again, so he knew she was finding some amusement in his surprise, just as she had in the dormitory.

"What changed your mind?"

She stopped too, a step above him on the staircase, meaning they were practically eye to eye. Scorpius was too aware of the fragility of their positions—that Rose could just lean forward, closing the gap between them, and stop her own heart. To think such an innocent gesture could end such a horrific outcome was enough to quash any arousal stirring in Scorpius at their close proximity.

"Who said it changed?" there was a tentative invite in her voice, a little mischievousness, like she was testing their boundaries on not just a physical level.

"I assumed the threat of constant near death was enough to put you off me." Scorpius' pulse picked up a little as her eyes darted down to his mouth, looking less wary than he would've liked.

"I think you're oversimplifying it."

"And _I_ think you're underestimating the severity of the situation."

She was still watching his lips, and as he spoke, she lifted a finger as though she threatened to trace them. He instinctively jerked away, his stomach clenching in horror and she watched carefully, the silence between them stretching to an uncomfortable length.

"I know there are only two options, really. Solve it, or live with it. And I'm trying the former before I settle for the latter." She was meeting his eyes with such careful concentration that he knew she was asking him to read between the lines, find the confession in her cryptic phrasing.

Scorpius was utterly horrified—it was an unspoken of everything he'd ever wanted to hear from Rose, but he knew the danger this would put her in. He'd spent six years trying to ensure this never happened, but it seemed like he'd utterly fucked it up somewhere along the line,

"You're an idiot."

"Am I?"

He shook his head, "This isn't a game, Rose. You're the one who'll end up dead if we go too far, and you're not recognizing how serious that is."

"Let's fix it then."

He wasn't sure if he admired her determination or was exasperated by her stubbornness, "You think my father hasn't undertaken his own research? You think we've just enjoyed a debilitating curse for hundreds of years because we like it?"

She frowned, "So you've already given up?"

It was an attempt to make him rise to the challenge, they'd always been deeply competitive when it came to each other, and she knew better than anyone how to bring that out in him,

"It's not like that, Rose, I just know when I'm on the losing side." He sighed, "All of this was meant to drive you away—any sane person would have run far, _far_ away from this entire situation—"

She lifted her hand carefully, as not to spook him, but he flinched anyway, still terrified of how close they were. Putting space between them was a reflex, having the consequences hammered down in his mind by his father, using the distance as a safeguard.

But she didn't try to touch his mouth again, instead she carded her fingers through the hair by his temple, and Scorpius forgot how grounding she was, and how easy it was to miss intimacy with someone who meant something.

"Why won't you let yourself have this?"

Maybe it was the way she was playing with his hair, but it seemed Rose was becoming an outlet for his truth, and he was slipping into a terrible familiarity with it,

"Because I know I can hurt you, and I'm terrified."

She sighed, "And you think the other option wouldn't?"

Her hand dropped, and he would've felt a pang of guilt if it wasn't a constant presence in his gut.

There were footsteps up the staircase, they both went quiet as a group of rambunctious second-years stampeded by—their obvious, scurried excitement completely at odds with the sombre tone of Rose and Scorpius' conversation.

Finally, after another minute of silence, Rose broke it, "I know you're worried, but at this point, I don't think it's your decision to make. I took a week, I considered the dangers, and this is where I arrived. I think you just need to give up the reins and have faith that the responsibility of your curse can be halved. I'm a big girl, Scorpius. We can do this together, if you let me."

It was a habit to let the name slip, and before he could stop himself, he sighed,

" _Roza_ …"

Her face lit, and she knew that she'd won, and before he could move away, she was pulling him into a tight hug. He knew hugs were safe, her face was nestled into the crook of his neck, he could feel her smile against his skin, just above his collar. It was overwhelming, all the same, her scent, her hair, the softness of her pressed firm against him and knew she was right—there had be a solution, or a good attempt at one, because keeping her at a distance wasn't something he could do.

* * *

 _Tuesday 28th February_

It wasn't really a choice.

It was either to be hurt by his presence, or by his absence. Rose would rather hold him at a carefully considered distance than not have him at all.

That was Scorpius' first problem—he thought it was a decision Rose was qualified to make. And maybe if she wasn't in love with him, she would've made the right one.

But, it was the most grounded she'd felt in a long time. Finally having something to tie Scorpius' erratic and irrational behaviour to was satisfying, as was the idea of having a goal to work towards and a problem to fix. Solving a kissing curse was reasonably clear cut, and more favourable than attempting to sort out a relationship between them, and maybe realizing that they wouldn't work together.

Instead Rose could pretend a kissing curse was the only thing that would keep them from being perfect, ignoring the years of mutual cruelty they'd inevitably have to work through in an attempt to build a functioning relationship, after lust and the initial excitement had died.

But Rose didn't have to think about that, she had a kissing curse to solve.

The worst thing, however, was that she couldn't tell her friends. Scorpius was adamant the truth stay between them, he was still ashamed and in the habit of keeping it secret, so remained firmly between them. Her friends were confused as to why she wasn't slamming doors in Scorpius' face—why she was skipping off to the library at every spare moment to spend time with _him_.

She wanted to explain that she hadn't caved, that Scorpius' remerging role in her life and her resulting happiness was understanding, not surrender. But Scorpius' curse was his truth, not hers, so she kept it under wraps and away from her prying friends.

Rose liked it when they were alone, anyway. She liked skim reading books at his side, resting her legs in his lap, and having him nurse her paper cuts. Intimacy was nice, for once, but died pretty quickly when she crossed one of his invisible barriers, and watched him freeze in dead fear. He was so restrained, and so very careful with her.

Rose had previously assumed his body language was disgust, but now she recognised frenzied restraint that was well-practiced, and she marvelled and how he held himself back, and wondered why he'd finally cracked on the Potions desk.

"We haven't really considered the boundaries of the curse."

Scorpius looked up from the tome he'd been hunched over. She could tell he didn't believe in the research, but was entertaining it to placate her, a feeling she wasn't fond of. But another set of eyes was useful, and the undertaking would be twice as arduous without his help.

"Huh?"

"I mean," she shifted, and she didn't notice her skirt had slipped until his eyes dropped and then nervously darted away, and she tugged it down, "you can't kiss me on the mouth, we assume. Does that mean I can kiss you, say, on the neck? If I initiate it, will it still trigger the curse?"

"I don't…"

"It wouldn't make sense, I guess, if you were asleep and I kissed you somewhere, and then I were to die. That's hardly your fault, wouldn't the curse account for that?"

He scoffed, "I don't think my ancestors would imagine their offspring looking twice at filthy blood, let alone falling asleep around—" he paused, realizing he'd slipped, "I'm not saying you have filthy blood, I—Merlin, you know I don't think like that, I—"

"I know." She cut him off quickly, chewing her nails in thought, "I licked you, didn't I?"

He blushed, and she could almost see what he was imagining "You—"

"Don't be crude, I mean at our Quidditch game. I licked you on the cheek, and I'm not dead, am I?"

He frowned, "No, but I don't know why licking would count as kissing. And what, are you going to lick me on the cheek every time we want to kiss?"

She laughed, "No, but I'm just saying, there must be some things the curse allows for. Shouldn't you know?"

He scowled, "Probably, but I hardly went around testing the 'parameters', did I? On account of having a deadly curse, and all—"

Rose's frustration matched his, like always, "That's not what I'm _saying_ , you idiot, I'm just trying to look at this from a scientific perspective, rather than a fatalistic one—"

"Well, I'm sorry that being fatal since birth has given me a fatalistic outlook, and I'm not all bloody cheery about the fact that I can't bloody kiss you, and—"

She sighed, "Scorpius."

He dragged his eyes from where they'd been glaring at the floor, and met hers with resignation, "Rose."

She tried her best at a smile, "You're killing me here, Scorp."

He glowered, "That is _not_ funny."

* * *

 **A/N: We're nearing the end, partly because you can't really drag this plot out for too long, and I'm started to lose a little bit of inspiration for this fic, if I am honest. I know this twist seemed out of the blue, but there are clues here and there - I just didn't want them to be too obvious because that would've spoiled the twist. Again, thanks for lovely reviews!**


	21. Seven

_Thursday 9_ _th_ _March_

When Scorpius took the time to pull his head out of his own arse, he was unusually observant. Albus forgot that though his best friend only dabbled lightly in the popularity stakes, he had a natural charisma that people were drawn to, and a name that some people would like to use him for. Because of these reasons—as well as an above average brain—Scorpius was scarily good at reading people.

The only thing that stopped Scorpius from being a consistent and reliable purveyor of people, was that the aforementioned head was in the aforementioned arse more often than not.

So when Albus finally hunted his friend down after dinner, cornering him in their dormitory and shooing the others out, he should've acknowledged that the conversation wasn't going to go the way he'd planned in his mind.

"Look," Albus found himself pacing, trying to outrun the jelly sensation in his knees, "I know I should've told you a long time ago, and I'm sorry."

Scorpius was silently watching Al walk the room with a crease in his brow, but didn't say anything, so Al continued,

"We're meant to be best mates—we are, don't get me wrong—but this was something I needed to figure out for myself first, before I could tell you. I was worried about how you'd react, because we're so close and I didn't want you to think—"

"You're dating that pretty boy from the Three Broomsticks."

Al froze, "Wha—what?"

Scorpius shifted on his bed, kicking off his shoes and setting his feet up. The crease was still between his eyebrows, but Albus knew it was out of concern, not judgement.

"The one from your birthday drinks, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

Scorpius predicted Al's next question, "I know I can be a self-absorbed prick sometimes. But when I went in there, thinking he was with Rose, I saw the way he reacted—and while I was too angry to acknowledge it at the time—he was there for someone, and it wasn't Rose. Then I thought about all the times you'd talked around who you were seeing, and you always use 'they' or 'them' when you talk about potential partners. I was just too deep in my 'Rose' bubble to put two and two together."

Albus was flabbergasted, and struggled to form a coherent sentence, so Scorpius continued,

"But I know you, so I know you've planned a little speech in your head, so keep going and I promise I won't interrupt."

Albus spluttered at that, "I do not plan _speeches_ when I—"

"Yes, you do." Scorpius replied.

Albus huffed, not wanting to get into that argument, "Well, I'm gay. And I'm telling you because I talked about it with Taki, and he said that if you were my best friend you would support me either way."

"Which I do. And I also apologise for assuming you were straight."

Albus found he didn't need to pace anymore, and threw himself down on his bed, "Apology accepted."

There was a little pause in the conversation, and Albus sat up again, "But you only decided to figure it out now?" He felt annoyed that this conversation could've been entirely avoided.

Scorpius was now rustling around in his bedside dresser, probably looking for the last few chocolates his parents had sent him last week. He didn't know Albus had already eaten them.

"No," Scorpius was digging through scrap parchment and Quidditch magazines like a frantic hamster, "I told you, I only just recently freed up more brain space, because I'm not moping over your cousin anymore, and my fantasies about shagging her take up less room."

"Ew."

Scorpius shrugged, "I know I'm a self-absorbed git, but if you haven't figured that out by now, that's your problem."

Albus felt a thousand times lighter, but also a tad annoyed with Scorpius for forcing him to briefly consider the boy's sexual fantasies involving his cousin,

"I ate the last of your chocolates while you were in the shower last night."

Scorpius' gaze snapped up from the drawer, meeting Al's eye with venom.

"You prick."

"I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry."

Scorpius' eyes narrowed further, "You owe me."

Albus rolled his eyes, "Are you five years old?"

"And I'm redeeming it now." He paused, and Albus didn't like how his mouth turned up with gleeful sadism, "You like boys so… did you ever have a crush on me?"

Albus found himself spluttering for the second time that evening, "You are _so_ pretentious, you—!"

"But you didn't say no!" Scorpius cackled, and Albus responded by lobbing a pillow at his head.

* * *

 _Wednesday 22_ _nd_ _March_

Scorpius didn't want to even think about how Rose managed to acquire a pass for the restricted section, but she proudly flashed it to Madame Pince all the same. He forgot she could be a greasy swot sometimes, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't the same.

"Bit of Gryffindor favouritism get you that?" he asked, indicating Professor Longbottom's signature on the note, because he couldn't resist some light antagonism.

She huffed, "There is no such thing as Gryffindor favouritism. The Slytherin victim complex, however? Very real."

"Funny."

Rose led the hunt through the much smaller collection, "I wonder if we should start in the blood purity records, or the blood curse section?"

They stumbled upon the former first, and Rose skimmed through the titles, pulling down anything that loosely related to the Sacred Twenty Eight. Scorpius cringed, recognizing a few titles that also graced his grandfather's library in the Manor.

"I don't like it here." He muttered, feeling a strange prickle across the back of neck.

"We won't be long." Rose told him absent-mindedly, already drawing thick and dusty volumes from the shelf, muttering titles to herself.

He watched her work, quick-skimming through the pages and looking for any mentions of curses or kissing. Scorpius watched her open books titled, 'Feats of The Pure' and 'The Moste Sacred Eight and Twenty' and found himself flushing, wanting nothing more than to avert her eyes and finish the whole section with a neat _incendio._

"Do you feel like helping?" she pressed him, and he huffed under his breath, but grabbed the nearest book all the same.

He was barely three pages in, and already Muggle-born births had been coined 'a strike against the pure' and 'a plague of underestimated proportions'. It wasn't as though he hadn't heard it before—if Lucius consumed too much Pixie Cognac he tended to make speeches on the 'dire' state of the world—but knowing Rose was beside him, reading similar sentences and probably thinking of her mother, and it made his stomach twist.

Finally, when he read a passage on 'holding one's breath' while passing Muggle-borns in public, he snapped the book shut.

"This is bullshit." He growled, "We should just move onto the curses section—"

"No, we need to make sure we've exhausted all of our resources—I don't want to risk missing anything—"

"Or," he glared, "we could jump to the part where you realize your boyfriend is a walking endorsement for blood purity, with no available cure, and most other guys in this castle could make you far happier with far less work."

This argument had been threatening for weeks now—they could feel it lingering behind them as they haunted the aisles, waiting to rear its head.

Rose reacted to Scorpius' increasing resignation with more optimism, and they continued to clash, "You don't _know_ , there's no cure. We're so close, I know we are, we just need to keep—"

"How do you know that?!" Scorpius exploded, his mounting frustration felt egged on by every minute they spent in the library, "What if there's not?! What if this is forever—what then?"

"I don't know! I don't have all the answers, Scorpius! But you know what's worse than the thought of that? The fact that you're not even willing to try!"

"Because it's a waste of fucking time!" he roared.

It was a good thing they were alone in the restricted section, because his volume even surprised him. But Rose was used to his anger, she didn't even flinch, instead seeming to draw strength from it,

"You know what I think the truth is?!"

"Enlighten me." He hissed.

"You're terrified of losing something to mope over. You _like_ wallowing in self-pity—god forbid we get rid of the curse, what will you sulk over then? The millions in your family vault? Your fantastic grades? Your enviably straight teeth?"

He scowled, she'd stepped closer to him during her rant, stabbing a finger in the centre of chest to punctuate each sentence.

"You want the truth?" he asked, his snapping and growling not carrying the same fire now, for some reason. Maybe it was her proximity. But the truth was, it was getting harder and harder to get mad it her these days. Now that he'd earned positive attention from her—affection, almost—her wrath fell short in fulfilling him.

"I do."

He counted to seven before speaking, trying to arrange the words,

"Because the more research we do, the sooner we may realise there is no cure. And when that's irrefutable, backed by our research, will you stay? Once we've exhausted all our options, and we're forced to resign to the idea that I'll never be able to kiss you, what are you staying for? Fuck knows I'm a prat—I'm self-absorbed, pig-headed almost all of time. I used to harass and bully you, so you wouldn't have the opportunity to get rid of me.  
"And what about the future? If we manage to get past my significant daddy issues, I carry a last name and ancestors that have no respect for our relationship and—lest I speak too soon—the legitimacy of our potential children. And I'll probably leech off my significant inheritance, because who wants the hire the son of a Death Eater?"

Rose didn't look angry anymore. She was watching him carefully, a crease between her brow that reminded him strangely of Albus, of all people.

"Do you want my truth?"

Her voice seemed even quieter after his frantic outburst, her tone measured and even. Scorpius nodded.

"You're talking about these things like I haven't considered them. And you're talking about it like I have everything to lose. Scorpius," she huffed a half-laugh, half-sigh, "you come with baggage. Everyone comes with baggage. But I've been in love with you for as long as I've been in hate with you. Somehow, through all your maliciousness and cruelty, I managed to find someone I care deeply about, even if I didn't realize it until recently.  
"So, do you really think something as benign as not being able to kiss you is going to stop me now? Or what your grandparents might say? For Merlin's sake, Scorpius, you charmed mashed potato to fly at me and I still managed to find a way to care about you. Because you're not defined by the curse, or your enduring pig-headedness. You're defined by your intelligence, and your wicked sense of humour, and—under everything—your surprising kindness. So, no, you prat, I'm not going to drop you. We'll find a way to make it work, we always do. But until I see it, written on paper and verified by, I don't know, the bloody Minister of Magic himself, I won't give up. Fair?"

If things had been different, if Malfoy bore any other name and ancestry, he would've kissed Rose. For a moment, he indulged himself by mapping it out in his mind. He'd press her against the bookshelves, hoping nothing was knocked off, and he'd meld his mouth to hers, just to earn a little gasp of surprise of her, before feeling her yield against him. He'd nip a line across her jaw, sucking the sensitive pulse where it joined her neck, and inhale the hum of approval he'd likely earn from his attentions.

But what was a kiss without lips, tongues?

It was resting his hand on Rose's lower back, feeling her arch and press against him with miniscule encouragement. It was sneaking a hand up her waist, feeling the warmth of skin under the creases of her blouse. It was feeling her head nestle against the crook of her neck, nosing the skin that peeked out of his colour, and resting his chin on her head and letting himself by overwhelmed by her.

So they stood like that, enjoying the intimacy of a kiss without one, until he spoke,

"Could you deal with one more truth today?"

She hummed, it tickled,

"You know when I found you on the Quidditch pitch?"

Her arms were locked around his neck, running her fingers through the delicate hair at the nape of his neck so gently Scorpius could've fallen asleep standing up,

"It wasn't as accidental as I pretended." He paused, sensing the attention in her heartrate, "I _may_ have been watching you on the Map."

"Prat." She huffed against him, but she didn't move away.

* * *

 **A/N: They've been fighting for six years, you think they're going to stop now?  
Also, thank you for the lovely reviews. While I went through a bit of a slump in inspiration there, I've finally got my fire back and am churning out these last few chapters.  
(Very belated birthday to Bridget Vo, hope you had a great day!)**


	22. Six

_Wednesday 5_ _th_ _April_

It had taken awhile for the response to arrive.

 _Mr Potter,_

 _I shall be expecting you in my office at six-thirty, if this time suits.  
The password is 'reconciliation'. _

_Regards,  
HM McGonagall_

Dinner had finished at six, and Albus had just had enough time to nip down to the dungeons—collecting the timetable and letters he'd organised—before speed-walking to McGonagall's office.

His heart felt uncomfortably light in his chest, and he put a reassuring hand against it, before announcing the password.

Taki's words from the night before were ringing in his mind—'they're here to help you, Albus'—as he took the stone staircase at a run, only pausing to rap on McGonagall's office door.

"Come in." he heard faintly, and he pushed the wooden door open, a little more than wary of the room behind it. Because though his name was well recognized within Hogwarts, Albus had flown under the radar for most of his academic career—never managing something brilliant or terrible enough to earn him a trip to the Headmistress' office.

"Take a seat, Mister Potter." She nodded at a chair before her desk, as Albus struggled to take in his surroundings. The most disarming piece in the office was the wall of portraits, and a thousand eyes watched him take his place in the highbacked armchair before McGonagall's desk.

She seemed to find his surprise amusing, if the flicker of a smile she shared with him was anything to go by, "I must say, the last Potter in this office was here on suspicion of charming the Slytherin toilets with a regurgitation spell. Quite the act to follow."

Albus was used to being compared to his brother, who'd left a ridiculously large shadow for Albus to compete with. It was far too old to upset Albus, however, and was so familiar that it relaxed Albus a little.

"I think 'understated' would be the last word used to describe James." He agreed with a shy smile.

They fell into a little silence, as Albus struggled to form his words, "I actually have a proposition, Professor. It's regarding my NEWTs," he stood, fumbling with his papers, "the last thing I'm expecting is a yes, and I'd understand if it wouldn't be allowed but," he wasn't sure what else to say, so he just handed her the papers with an awkward expression, "there's a letter of recommendation there from Nevi—Professor Longbottom, and a map and plan of our proposed research."

McGonagall adjusted her glasses, and skimmed the parchment for a few minutes, leaving Albus sweaty-palmed and hovering awkwardly.

"You want to submit 'equatorial research' as credit towards your Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures NEWTs?" she summed up after a significant pause, looking to Albus for confirmation.

He cleared his throat, "Ideally, yes. I've gone over the curriculum for next year, and both subjects are largely self-led, where we pick our own area to specialise in and research in depth. If my equatorial field trip and research could be credited towards it, ideally I'd earn two NEWTs instead of leaving school with no final qualification."

McGonagall organised the papers into a neat pile before speaking, "I must say, Mister Potter, I was surprised when I heard about your decision to leave school early."

That took the wind out of Albus sails a little, "You've… already heard?"

"I received an interesting letter from your father sometime in February—he was asking, as a personal favour, that I dissuade you from leaving."

"Oh." He sat back in his chair.

"I told him I wouldn't. While I agree that a qualification is essential in the working world, learning is largely self-led. Albus was rather fond of a Muggle quote, and he used it quite often, 'you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.'"

The twinge of familiarity at his own name passed quickly, instead his eyes darted to the portrait hung lowest on the wall, only a few inches above McGonagall's head. The portrait felt its eyes of him, and sent him a friendly wink. Albus looked away, strangely embarrassed.

"I appreciate that you've done a fair amount of research, Albus," she continued, "but my approval can only be granted with a few compromises. The first, being the matter of cross-crediting. While I agree that your field research will count towards your NEWTs, it will only be towards the theory aspect of either subject.  
"Seeing as both Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology have accompanying practical examinations, you will have to sit these at Hogwarts, next May, while supervised by the authorized instructors. I'm afraid the rules surrounding the practical examinations are very strict, and you could not be granted the qualification otherwise."

He nodded, that was fair. That still meant eleven months with Taki on the trip, and he could head straight out into the field immediately after his exams.

"Also," McGonagall proceeded after Al's nod, "I firmly advise that you do three NEWT subjects, not just two. Three is the bare minimum many employers expect, even if you achieved Outstandings in your other two subjects. Is there another subject you enjoy, or do well in?"

He thought for a moment, "I've always done alright in Astronomy, and that's largely dependent on the end of year exams as well."

"That sounds like a good option. Am I to understand," she skimmed the top letter, "that Arataki Lockridge also has a final school year qualification in Astronomy? Would he consider tutoring you, perhaps after a day of field work?"

Albus nodded, excited now that he could see the solution he'd planned coming to careful fruition, "Taki says he'll fill any forms necessary to be legitimized at a tutor."

McGonagall's lips quirked into a smile again, "I'm sure his experience as an apprentice here will be enough to prove his worth as a tutor. As long as you have the required materials and equipment, Astronomy is reasonably accessible subject, as long as you can see the sky.  
"But those, Mister Potter, are the only compromises I'd have you make. The only thing left to do is submit this proposal to the NEWT board, but it's unlikely to be refused with my word behind it."

Albus leapt from his chair, "Thank you, Professor! Thank you so much! I—" he had the strangest urge to hug McGonagall, but he recognized she probably wouldn't appreciate it. A nasty voice told him to maintain professionalism, but the news was like a weight lifted, a weight that had hung over him ominously since his argument with his father.

"You're welcome, Mister Potter. I appreciate that you've taken the initiative to organize this and further your education, when leaving would've been the easier option. I look forward to hearing news of your travels."

"Thank you!" was all he seemed capable of, but he strode to the door with a wave, and far less anxiety than he'd entered the room with. Now that that was off his chest, his next errand was to snog the living daylights out of Taki, with some heavy petting if he was lucky.

"Good luck with your exams, Mister Potter." McGonagall called before the door shut.

She turned in her chair, to face the portrait that sat a few inches above her head.

"Shall I write Harry and tell him to stop sending me letters, now?"

Albus smiled, "I think we'll leave the good news for Albus to share."

* * *

 _Friday 14_ _th_ _April_

"Well, fuck."

Scorpius and Rose were huddled close under a stone alcove, gazing across the castle grounds to where the Quidditch pitch stood. Or, at least what they could see of it, as it was largely obscured by the torrential spring downpour that had started roughly thirty seconds before.

"You're taking me to the Quidditch pitch? Neither of us have brooms." Rose looked at her boyfriend in puzzlement, but he waved his hand dismissively.

He'd been particularly secretive of late, especially when he'd told her to meet him outside of Transfiguration before lunch.

"No, it's not—dammit." Scorpius fumbled in his robe pocket, "I'll have to cast a water repellent spell, but—"

Rose recognized the crease in his brow; he was angry that everything wasn't going to the perfect plan he'd likely mapped in his mind. She knew that Scorpius would spend the rest of the day in a foul mood if she didn't do something, because Scorpius could be a right perfectionist sometimes. And knowing him, he'd probably had whatever he'd planned in the works for weeks.

"Last one to the pitch is a rotten egg." She grinned at him, before she took off at a sprint.

The rain was a sudden shock, regardless of the unusually warm air. Fat drops pelted her skin, and found their way down the collar of her blouse, bringing up goosebumps.

The ground beneath her shoes was sludgy, as the hard ground struggled to absorb the sudden downpour, and each stride flicked muddy water up the back of her calves. Though she'd bolted before ensuring Scorpius was following, she could hear his footsteps squishing behind her,

"You don't even know where you're going!" he called, and he was closer than she'd expected, urging her forward.

It was like their Quidditch game all over again—the adrenaline of being chased, and the sting of droplets on her skin, bought an uncontrollable smile to Rose's face as she ran, Scorpius right on her heels. She was five steps from the main entrance when his arm finally clamped around her waist, pulling her up and away from victory.

"Not fair!" she squirmed, feeling him hard against her back, clamped in his grip.

"We're not going onto the pitch." He panted, dragging her instead for the nearest Quidditch stand, the doorway cut cleanly out of its canvas cover.

They ducked inside, catching their breath out of the heavy downpour. The air was so sticky and humid that it made their breath steam, and Rose shivered at the dampness of her skin.

Scorpius was soaked, his hair almost transparent and pasted to his face, and rivulets were still streaming down his neck. Rose quickly became aware of the affect the water had had on his white school shirt, it clung, see-through, to all the ridges and planes she likes about him, but hardly had the opportunity to see.

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, and she knew that she was in a similar state.

Rose blushed, and the urge to kiss him turned up a fraction. It was always there, settling somewhere between her heart and ribcage as an ache, something she could ignore most of the time. But it was moments like these, which seemed to beg for his lips on hers, that it was the hardest to set aside.

"Come on," he nodded, slipping his hand into hers. They headed up the staircase, which hugged against the wooden frame of the stand, up and up until Rose was dizzy and out of breath all over again. For all Rose's time on the pitch, she hadn't been in the stands since second-year, as she'd made the team in third.

Scorpius hung back, slipping his hands over Rose's eyes as they approached the final few steps,

"No peeking."

"If I fall and break something, I'll curse you." Rose replied, and she felt his huff of amusement as opposed to hearing it.

But he helped her up the stairs without issue, and his hands dropped,

"Ta da."

It took her a second for her eyes to adjust. But the first thing she saw were the floating candles, haphazardly organized in a circle. On a bench sat a wicker picnic basket, two cushions laid out for them to sink into.

"Scorpius… oh my God." She turned back to him, "You're such a romantic."

He seemed to enjoy her surprise, if the proud curl of his mouth was any indicator. Rose walked ahead, up to the bench, prodding a candle. The rain was still falling heavily, and it pattered against the canvas and filled the silence between them. While the fabric had kept most of the water out, occasionally drops gathered and made it through, big beads falling randomly around them.

Scorpius followed Rose, settling down on one of the cushions. He dug through the basket, producing two small parcels wrapped in wax paper.

"Cheese and pickle for you." He held out the parcel, and Rose took her seat, gentling unpacking the carefully made sandwich. She didn't ask him how he knew her favourite sandwich filling, in the same way she knew his was chicken salad.

She'd so often underestimated how much of their lives they'd spend around each other, even if most of it was disguised in brawls and rows.

It seemed he was thinking along the same lines, and he paused in unwrapping his own sandwich,

"When did you start liking me?" he asked, breaking the silence, and Rose had to swallow before she answered,

"That's a difficult question," she began, "as it took me a while to even realize I did."

He didn't feel pressure to answer, and watched her as she mulled it over,

"I can't really pinpoint it, I suppose. I remember when you used to sleep at the Burrow, and Nana Molly would put us beside each other. I'd wake up on New Year's Day, and feel a little flutter in my stomach at seeing you beside me, before I remembered to actively hate you.  
"Or if I saw someone appear around a corner, or I knew someone was behind me, I'd always be relieved when I saw it was you. Or when you would insult me, it would hurt so much more for some reason. Maybe that's why it was far easier to hate you."

Scorpius' face scrunched a little, but he didn't drop eye contact,

"I know I've said it before, but I am sorry. Regardless of my reasons, I shouldn't have treated you as I did."

Rose shrugged, "There's no use pretending you're the only guilty one. I was violent with you—I lost my temper when I shouldn't have. I gave back as good as I got, even if it was physical rather than psychological. I'm sorry too."

Scorpius nodded in acknowledgement, and a comfortable silence fell between them as they ate. Rose liked these moments too, where she and Scorpius would slip into their respective thoughts. She hadn't realized how easy it would be to grow comfortable around him, and being around him was just as natural as being alone.

He let out a strained breath after his finished his sandwich, crushing the wax paper in a too-tight fist, "This is very difficult."

"What is?" she asked, and Scorpius' gaze was fixed stubbornly on the canvas ceiling above them.

"Keeping my gaze above your neck." Scorpius confessed, finally meeting her eyes.

She gazed down, she'd forgotten about her damp shirt in all the fuss. It, like his, had gone see-through, and her pale pink bra was clearly defined through it. She felt a flare of mischievousness at the idea of turning Scorpius on, and she fingered the top button.

"Well, I can take it off, if you'd like." She suggested with false innocence, meeting his eyes again. He made a strangled sound, which did something squirmy to her insides.

Rose didn't know if she could follow through on her threat, the Quidditch stand was very open, even if they were right up on the back benches. But, she conceded, Hogwarts was currently at lunch, and no one would be flying in this weather.

She popped the first button, and Scorpius' inhale was sharp. By the second button, he was white-knuckling the bench he sat on, as though it was taking all his self-control not to leap on her. She liked seeing Scorpius, so poised and arrogant, captivated by something as simple as an open button, and that she had the power to do so. Because his gaze was certainly below her neck now, hungrily watching each inch of skin she bared, held prettily by her favourite bra (which she had chosen completely on purpose.)

"Would you like to do the rest?" she asked, and she hadn't even finished her sentence before he was on his knees before her, as though he'd Apparated by sheer willpower.

One hand slipped across the wet buttons, and his under hand was slipping under the sodden material, mapping the curve of her cleavage and the lace edge of her breath. Her skin was sticky with damp, but it was his touch that left blossoms of goosebumps in its wake.

With him on his knees, breathless before her, she felt revered in all the right ways, his eyes tracking where his fingers had been.

He leant forward, fitting cautiously between her legs, resting his elbows on her thighs. She froze, not daring to move as he almost pressed his lips—so, so carefully—over the fabric covering her skin, so his mouth was one breath from forbidden contact. Neither dared to move, away or towards, carefully walking the line between satisfying the ache and endangering each other.

"If I could…" he whispered against her, and she silently agreed. She pictured it so much it felt like she was remembering it. She'd mapped out all the places she'd kiss him, across his jaw, which he always clenched when they argued. Along the line of his neck, only revealed when he peeled his hair away from his face and fastened it with his leather tie. Across his chest, revelling in the hardness under his skin. Each of his fingers, on the callouses rough from Quidditch practice. Even his cock, she'd pictured how he'd shudder if she kissed him there, taking as much of him as she could—when she was feeling especially wanting.

But mostly his mouth, just to see if his lips were as soft as they looked. She'd kiss them until they were bee-stung and pink, chapped and worn, for hours—just because they could.

She shifted, rolling off the bench and into his lap. It was awkward, between the benches, as he half-lay and half-sat on the damp wood, and she straddled him.

A fat drop of water from the canvas chose that moment to fall, and it landed directly in the middle of Scorpius' forehead. He blinked for a second, disorientated, and Rose laughed at his bewildered expression. But she reached out, sweeping the drop off his forehead with her thumb.

"Can I take this off?" he asked, tugging on her blouse, and while the idea of stripping her top off was intimidating, the way Scorpius looked at her made her feel a little less naked.

Their breaths had grown heavier, from all their wriggling and adjusting—and maybe a little arousal—and she helped him remove it, the drag of wet cloth on her skin made her shiver, which drew a groan from him.

"God, you're fucking gorgeous, _Roza_." He breathed, and she felt her chest flush in embarrassment—something she'd always considered unattractive. But guessing by the way he watched it spread, his fingers chasing the colour down her sternum and under her bra, he disagreed.

Rose had flicked her skirt up, so only her underwear and his trousers separated them—she could feel him hard against her, rocking in miniscule movements as he chased friction against her. The ache of need had sunk far lower now, simmering somewhere low in her belly, waiting to be sated.

She found herself bearing down, chasing friction as well, gasping as he hit the spot that made her shudder. He watched carefully, doing it again, watching her expression crumple in pleasure.

"Merlin." He muttered, repeating the movement with more vigour, apparently enjoying seeing her cave.

The found a pattern they both enjoyed, grinding against each other until the need low in Rose's belly turned to a tingle, and she found her hands knotted in his shirt as she rode it out, unable to bite back a cry as she shook.

He seemed to watch in awe, before his own needs reclaimed his attention, and continued to rock against her until he didn't need to anymore. Rose liked to watch that part, as his cheeks would flush a specific shade of pink, his mouth pouting in half-pleasure, half-surprise.

She collapsed onto him breathless, resting her head against his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair—or tried to anyway—carefully avoiding the knots.

"I, uhm—" she tried after a comfortably long silence, "I'm ready, you know."

"Ready?" he hummed, still sounding worn.

"For, you know." The conversation she'd rehearsed in her head had been a lot more romantic, "Sex. Actual sex. I'm ready when you are."

She felt Scorpius pause, and she couldn't help holding her breath until he spoke,

"I want to wait until I can kiss you. Then we will."

While it wasn't the answer her libido wanted, she recognized this was Scorpius' way of acknowledging their research, and the potential of finding a cure. It was a reminder that despite his doubts, and the vocal demonstrations of his frustration, he believed in it all.

"Thank you." She nuzzled down into him, and his fingers just kept playing with strands of her hair by way of reply.

* * *

 **A/N: Anyone keen on Albus/Taki smut? Also, sorry this chapter is short. Bit of a filler because the next one is looking big :)**


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